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THE 



LIFE 



OF THE 



RIGHT HONOURABLE 



3i©Msr wmE 



iM.^'k^ 



LATE MASTER qf^^^J^OLLS IN IRELAND, 






BY HIS SON, 

WILLIAM HENRY CURRAN. 



BARRISTER AT LAW. 



NEW-YORK : 

Printed for William II. Creaoh. 



1820. 
rc, N. BalJwiii, Prinier.^ 



?ao 



THE tlBRARY 
Of C ONGR ESS I 

IwASmiffOTOll 



CONTENTS. 

Preface • - - - - page 7 

CHAPTER I. 

Mr. Curran's origin — His parents — Early education — Originally intended 
for the church — Enters Trinity College — His ardour for the classics— Let- 
ter to Mr. Stack — Anecdote of his mother — Her epitaph — While in college 
fixes on the bar — Anecdote connected with the change of profession — 
His character in college — Addicted to metaphysics — Anecdote on the 
subject— Verses to Apjohn - - - 17 

CHAPTER H. 

Mr. Curran leaves College— Enters the Middle Temple— Letter to Mr. 
Weston— Letter to Mr. Keller — His first attempts in oratory fail — His own 
account of the failure, and of bis first success — A regular attendant at De- 
bating Clubs — Anecdotes— His Poem on Friendship — Dr. Creagh's char- 
acter of him — Mr. Hudson's predictions and friendship — His early man- 
ners and habits — Subject to constitutional melancholy — Letters from Lon- 
don — His society in London—Anecdote of his interview with Macklin— 
His early application and attainments— Favourite authors — Early at- 
tachment to the Irish peasantry— His marriage— Remarks upon English 
law - - - - - 30 

CHAPTER UL 

Mr. Curran called to the Irish bar— Dissimilarities between that and the 
English bar— Causes of the difference - - 6' 

CHAPTER IV. 

Mr. Curran's early success at the bar — His contest with Judge Robinson 
His defence of a Roman Catholic priest— His duel with Mr. St. Leger— 
Receives the dying benediction of the priest— Lord Avonmore's friend- 
ship— His character of Lord Avonmore- Monks of St. Patrick, and list 
of the original members— Anecdotes of Lord Avonmore— Mr. Curran*j= 
entrance into parliament • - - "^^ 



iy CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Irish House of Commons in 1783— Sketch of the previous history 
Ireland— Effects of the revolution of 1688— Catholic penal code— System 
of governing Ireland — Described by Mr. Curran — Intolerance and de- 
gradation of the Irish parliament — Change of System — Octennial bill — 
American revolution — Its effects upon Ireland — The Irish volunteers- 
Described by Mr. Curran — Their numbers, and influence upon public 
measures-- Irish revolution of 17u2 — Mr. Grattan's public services — Ob- 
servations upon the subsequent conduct of the Irish parliament page 87 

CHAPTER VI. 

Mr. Flood's plan of parliamentary reform — Mr. Curran's contest and duel 
with Mr. Fitzgibbon (afterwards Lord Clare) — Speech on pensions — His 
professional success — Mode of life— Occasional verses — Visits France — 
Letters from Dieppe and Rouen — Anecdote— Letter from Paris — Anec- 
dote—Letter from Mr. Boyse — Anecdole of Mr. Boyse— Letters from 
Holland .... 104 

CHAPTER VII. 

His raaiest3'''s illness— Communicated to the House of Commons— Mr. Cur- 
ran's speech upon the address — Regency question — Formation of the 
Irish Whig oposition — Mr. Curran's speech and motion upon the division 
of the boards of stamps and accounts — Answered by Sir Boyle Roche — 
Mr. Curran's reply — Correspondence and duel with Major Hobart — Ef- 
fects of Lord Clare's enmity— Alderman Howison's case - 124 

CHAPTER VIU. 

State of parties — Trial of Hamilton Rowan — Mr. Curran's fidelity to his par- 
ty— Rev. William Jackson's trial— Conviction— and Death—Remarks upon 
that trial - Irish informers — Irish juries— The influence of the times upon 
Mr. Curran's style of oratory - - - 150 

CHAPTER IX. 

Mr. Curran moves an address to the throne for an inquiry into the state of 
the poor — Other parliamentary questions — Mr. Ponsonby's plan of re- 
form rejected— Secession of Mr. Curran and his friends — Orr's trial— 
Finnerty's trial— Finney's Trial — The informer James O'Brien 173 

CHAPTER X. 

Rebellion of 1798 — Its causes — Ujipopular system of government— Influ- 
ence of the French Revolution — Increased intelligence in Ireland — Re- 



COxNTENTS. y 

ibrra societies — United Irishmen— Their views and proceedings — Apply 
for aid to France — Anecdote of Theobald Wolfe Tone — Numbers of the 
United Irishmen — Condition of the peasantry and conduct of the aristo- 
cracy — Measures of the government — Public alarm— General insurrec- 
tion - - - . page 203 

CHAPTER XI. 

Trial of Henry and John Sheares - - 222 

CHAPTER XII. 

Trials of M'Cann, Byrne, and Oliver Bond — Reynolds the informer — 
Lord Edward Fitzgerald— his attaind r— Mr. Curran's conduct upon the 
state trials— Lord Kilwarden's friendship— Lines addressed by Mr. Cur- 
ran to Lady Charlotte Rawdon— Theobald Wolfe Tone— his trial and 
death - - - - - 255 

CHAPTER XIH. 

Effects of the legislative union upon Mr. Curran's mind — Speech in Tan- 
dy's case — Speech in behalf of Hevey — Allusion in the latter to Mr. God- 
win — Mutual friendship of Mr. Curran and Mr. Godwin - 276 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Mr. Curran vistts Paris— Letter to his son— Insurrection of 1803— Defence 
of Kirwan— Death of Lord Kilwarden— Intimacy of Mr. Robert Emmet 
in Mr. Curran's family, and its consequences— Letter from Mr Emmet 
to Mr. Curran— Letter from the same to Mr. Richard Curran - 292 

CHAPTER XV. 

Mr. Curran appointed Master of the Rolls in Ireland — His literary projects- 
Letter to Mr. M'Nally — Account of a visit to Scotland in a letter to Miss 
Fhilpot— Letter to Mr. Leslie— Letters to Mr. Hetheringtoa 308 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Mr. Curran is invited to stand for the borough of Newry— Speech to the 
electors— Letter to Sir J. Swinburne- Letter on Irish affairs to H. R. H. 
the Duke of Sussex - - - - 323 

CHAPTER XVH. 

Mr Curran's health declines— Letters to Mr. Hetherington— Resignation 
of his judicial office— Letters from London to Mr. Lube— Letters from 
Paris to the same— His last illness and death - 342 



yi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XVin. 

Observations on Mr Currants eloquence— Objections to his style consider- 
ed— His habits of preparation for public speaking— His ideas of popular 
eloquence— His pathos— Variety of his powers— His imagination— Pecu- 
liarity of his images— His use of ridicule— Propensity to metaphor- 
Irish eloquence— Its origin— Mr. Curran's and Burke's eloquence com- 
pared . - - . page 373 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Mr. Currants skill in cross-examination— His general reading — His conver- 
sation— His wit— Manuscript thoughts on various subjects — His manners, 
person— Personal peculiarities— Conclusion - • 400 



POEMS. 

Lines addressed to Lady , in answer to a poem in which she had pre- 
dicted the future freedom of Ireland - - 419 
A Letter in Rhyme to a Friend ... 422 
The Plate-warmer - - - - 426 
The Green Spot that blooms o'er the Desert of Life. A Song 438 
The Poor Man's Labour. A Song - - . - ib. 
The Meridian is past - - - ^ 439 
To Mrs. Forty, the Dispenser of the Waters at Cheltenham 440 



APPENDIX. 

Fragment of a religious Essay - - . 449 

Mr. Grattan's Letter to the citizens of Dublin - - 452 
Account of the late Plan of Insurrection in Dublin, and the Causes of its 

Failure, drawn up by Mr. Robert Emmet »• - 470 

Character of Mr. Curran by Mr. Godwin - - 474 

Character of Mr. Curran by the Rev. George Croly - 475 



The Publisher, aware of a close intimacy having 
subsisted between Mr. Sampson and the late Mr. 
Curran, addressed the following note to Mr. Samp- 
son. 

.. gjj^ " New- York, August 14, 1820. 

" I have just received the life of Curran by his Son, which I send 
you for your perusal— I know you will hail its appearance with rapture, and 
read it with delight. I recollect when I mentioned to you my intention of 
reprinting it, you were so kind as to say you would furnish me with some 
facts relative to that great man ; knowing how peculiarly interesting those 
must be, when they come from one who enjoyed so much of his confidence 
and esteem, I am eager to have them as soon as your leisure will permit, 
and any letters of his that you may happen (o have preserved, and think 
proper to give, will much add to the obligation ; I am rapidly progressing 
with the work, and expect to have it ready for publication within five 
or six weeks. I remain, Dear Sir, with great respect, your very obedient 
servant, 

" WILLIAM H. CREAGH." 
Wm. Sampson, Esq. New-York. 

„ g ** New-York, September 2, 1820. 

" I deferred answering your letter till I had read the Book you 
were so good as to send me, which I have since done with much admiration ; 
and though the sensations it excited were somewhat sad, yet it rejoiced me 
to find the genius of Curran surviving in a Son, who in vindicating his 
father's fame, has nobly, though perhaps unconsciously, established his 
own, and sweetly mingled the tender sehtiment of filial piety, with the 
manly decision of a faithful and candid historian. 

" 1 had been often before solicited to furnish something towards Currants 
history ; and about the time that this author proposed to become his father's 
biographer, an invitation from him to that effect was communicated to me 
through my friend Mr. Emmet. That I did not comply with a request 
which I deemed an honour, was not from any unwillingness to pay my share 
of a just tribute, but from an insurmountable reluctance to revive recollect 
tions full of regret, and the difiiculty of separating the history of Curran 



yiij PREFACE. 

from that of his xfluntry, with which it was interwoven : and to speak on 
that subject withWness and effect the time wr<s not yet arrived. These 
difficulties, sir, I stated to you when I promised (for so 1 find you have con- 
sidered it) to write something:, but I merely thought of vindicaline: the reputa- 
tion of a man, much extolled, but often undervalued, from censures founded 
on misapprehensions and mistakes. And let me add, that whatever diffi- 
culties I felt before, they are only enhanced by the reading of the work, 
where I find the task so well performed without any aid ot mine, by the 
legitimate heir of his father's celebrity who has so manfully taken charge 
of his own inheritance. Nor did I then know how I bad been anticipated 
by an article of uncommon excellence in the Edinburgh Review. I nowieel 
in its full force the delicacy and danger, without, or even with, the permis- 
sion of the author, of interpolating any thing into a book, whose principal 
fault judicious critics find to be its too great amplitude : and to which de- 
fect, I should, with due respect, add that of its being already burthened with 
too long notes. I am therefore better pleased that you have appropriated 
a space which will separate from the body of the work the little I have to 
say, and where.it may be read or passed over without disparaging the book. 
And though I may not now be able to add any interest to this biography, it 
is a consolation to find that my earlier labours have not been without their 
use ; since the celebrity of Curran with posterity is now said to depend 
chiefly upon his forensic speeches, and upon those particularly which I was 
instrumental in preserving. Amongst these I find the preference is given 
by the author to the defence of Mr. Rowan, and that it has principally 
attracted the attention of the critics: amongst whom, though there are 
gome too light to be regarded, there are others from whose judgment it is 
not always safe nor easy to appeal, and who have by so much the more 
weight, as their strictures, though to my seeming somewhat fastidious, are 
tempered by urbanity, liberality and justice. I have said that some critics 
were undeserving of regard ; and the mention of this defence of Mr. Rowan, 
challenges the insertion of an anecdote that may amuse the reader, and 
prove a lesson to self-conceited pedants. 

*' One of these gravely informed his readers, that Curran was not, as 
■weaker men thought, gifted with extraordinary facility of imagination or 
felicity of expression, nor with those ready and exhaustless treasures of 
classical acquirement, for which he had got credit : that he was evidently a 
crafty, slow, mechanical compiler, with no more wit or genius than a com- 
mon bookmaker : and that the effect of his " magical e^usions'*^ upon his 
hearers, proved nothing but his and their "'' bad taste,^^ which he considered 
as a contai::ious malady, and seemed busying iiimseif no little to prevent its 
spreading. This new faiigled paradox the sententious critic affected to prove . 
by the concluding pass;^ge of' Curran's argument for a new trial in Mr Row* 
an'-s case, in which he could discover the marks of the tools, as a judge of" 



PREFACE. ix 

bank paper cli8ting:uishes between the freedom of the pen and the stiffness 
of the graving iron. I had no time, as little ambition, and I fear too little 
means of figuring in a literary controversy, and least of all in verbal criti- 
cism, virhich has been always my aversion : and I let this pass, knowing 
that folly, if rebuked for the gingling of her bells, will but gingle them still 
the more. But I am tempted by the apropos which arises out of the work 
now before me, to state what 1 know of that very passage. It will go so 
far in fulfilment of what you seem to expect from me. It runs thus : 

* You are standing on the scanty isthmus that divides the great ocean of 
duration, on one side is the past, on the other is the future ; a ground, that 
whilst you yet hear me, is washed from beneath your feet. Let me remind 
you, my Lord, while your determination is yet in your own power, dum 
versatur adhuc inter penetralia vestiE, that on that ocean of the future, you 
must set your judgment afloat, and future ages will assume the same autho- 
rity which you have assumed, posterity will feel the same emotions which 
you have felt, when your little hearts have beaten, and your infant eyes have 
overflowed, at reading the sad history of the sufferings of a Russel era Sid- 
ney.* 

" Now this was so little premeditated, that the speaker had finished his 
discourse, and actually sat down before it was ever thought of ; and it was 
uttered extemporaneously upon a suggestion of my own. The manner of it 
was this. I sat next to Curran, and was busy in writing the sentence with 
which he had concluded, when he, in the act of sitting down, whispered in 
my ear * are you satisfied with me ?' I whispered back in as few words as 
I could say it — * you might have said something of Jeff"reys, and Scroggs, 
and Russel, and Sidney.' This was enough for his quick and apprehensive 
genius. He knew that though the Lord Chief Justice, Clonmell, who pre- 
sided, had enjoyed to satiety whatever the blind Goddess could bestow, 
and that though he had for many years braved public censure, yet, that in 
his latter days he was supposed to feel a craving for character which wealth 
or station could not purchase, and a dread of infamy from which it might not 
screen him. The then Solicitor General was Mr. Toler, who followed in his 
steps, and became Lord Chief Justice Norbury, the^gjame who condemned 
the virtuous and accomplished traitor RobertEmmet. They were both taken 
up during the Viceroyalty of Lord Townsend to serve in the House of Com- 
mons as soldiers of fortune. They were bold and adventurous ; they took 
the beaten track of preferment, and devoted themselves to the Castle with- 
out scruple or reserve. It was to this corrupt mode of elevation that Curran 
had alluded, by that strong figure applied to the Judges, in the period pre- 
ceding the revolution, and which has branded their memories, that ' they 
remained at the bottom like drowned bodies while they had any soundness, 
and only rose by their corruption.' 

*' Mr. Rowan was a country gentleman of figure, fortune, and education, 
eminently distinguished and infinitely beloved. Nature had cast him in bo 
I 



^ PREFACt. 

common mould : as his person was both graceful and manly, so his heprt wa;' 
botii tender and courageous : his sympathies were ever with the oppressed 
against the oppressor. He was, in a word, such as Curran has described 
him. There were circumstances, moreover, in his story with relation to his 
judge, and also to the journalist, who selected his jury, that gave to Iheiironp 
a strong relief, and to the whole scene a true poetic honor : and nothing was 
80 likely to affect the mind of such a man, or to check any disposition to 
crush the defendant, as the dread of posthumous infamy. This explana- 
tion will suffice for the intelligent reader, and the hint was enough for the 
vivid and expansive mind of Curran ; he rose up as though he had not yet 
concluded, and after a short prelude finished with that, which the sagacious 
commentator pitched upon as an unerring proof of plodding preparation. 

*' The breach of continuity which will be found in m> report was owing to 
the interruption, which the short dialogue 1 have stated occasioned ; for 
in order to follow him in this splendid conclusion, I left unwritten what he 
bad first closed with, and unwilling to risk any thing of which I was not as- 
sured, I was obliged to connect it by common place phrases thus — ' Mr. 
Curran made other observations either to corroborate his own, or to answer 
the opposite counsel, of which it is impossible to give an exact detail ;' and 
concluded thus — ' you are standing,' &c. 

From the inquisitive curiosity with which I have been questioned by men 
of letters in America, particularly those of my own profession, touching 
one, the charms of whose eloquence they have felt and acknowledged, I 
doubt not this anecdote will be acceptable. When celebrated men have 
ceased to exist, the minutest circumstances that shed light upon their man- 
ner of being, and their moral habits, acquire an interest. E\en fac similes 
of hand writing of men of cherished memory, have been thought worth pre- 
serving by engraved copies. Tke'w letters, which are images of their 
thoughts and minds, must be much better worth preserving. The familiar 
epistles of Cicero are now read in the interior of this continent by a much 
greater number, and with no less avidity than they were^by the Romans of 
his own and succeeding times ; and, as you say that any letters of Curran 
will be acceptable, I||^ll, without more preface, subjoin the following cor- 
respondence between the client and his counsel. ^ 

* New Prison, Sunday Morning, Feb. 16. 
* Mr. Hamilton Rowan presents his compliments to Mr. Curran, he has 
just read over the report of his trial by Mr. M'Kenzie. It appears to him 
to b^what he had reason to expect it would be, a very mutilated account of 
the whole, but more particularly in those parts which are said to contain the 
defence made for him by Mr. Curran. H. R. however, does not feel him- 
self authorised to make such an assertion publicly, without having first com- 
municated his idea to Mr. Curran, and requested to know whether be enter- 
tained a similar opinion,* 



PREFACE. 



XI 



* Ely Place, Sunday. 
* Mr. Curran presents his respects to Mr. Hamillon Rowan— he has also 
read the printed report, in which he found the defence made for Mr. Rowan 
very strangely reported indeed. Mr. Curran thinks himself bound upon 
that subject to acquaint Mr. Rowan with the following particulars. Last 
Sunday Mr. M'Kenzie, the publisher of the report, brought Mr. Curran a 
paper which he said was a note of the defence, and which he begged Mr. 
Curran would ^peruse and correct ; Mr. Curran informed Mr. M'Kenzie that 
he had not leisure for that, but told him that two gentlemen of the bar had 
taken a very full note of the above trial, and he would procure their note of 
his defence as soon as those gentlemen could have it transcribed from the 
short band in which it was taken. Mr. Curran also told Mr. M'Kenzie, 
that the paper he brought him, and which Mr. Curran read, contained so 
mutilated a statement of that part of the trial, as Mr. M'Kenzie would not b« 
warranted in publishing. Mr. M'Kenzie assured Mr. Curran he would not, 
for any consideration, do so improper a thing, and that he would not suffer 
it to appear. Next day Mr. Curran received the enclosed letter, which he 
sends to be made use of, together with this, in any manner that Mr. Rowan 
may think proper.' 

* College Green, Monday Morning. 

^ I am exceedingly distressed at finding myself not able to do as I promis- 
ed yesterday (and as I thought myself fully ivarranted.) The gentleman 
v^'hom I am printing the trial for, will not suffer me to make any alteration, 
he employing me only as the printer. I am, with much respect, your 
obedient servant, W. M'KENZIE.' , 

To John Philpot Curran, Esq. Ely Place. 

" I shall add one or two letters from Curran. written to myself in the easy 
style of friendship. I select them, because they have some reference to this 
trial ; and also, because they turn upon the concerns of my own family, and 
have regard to no other persons, nor no more important subject; and!, 
therefore, feel myself the more free to dispose of them. But here a word 
or two by way of preface may be necessary. The t?:ial of Mr. Rowan was 
upon a criminal information, filed ex officio in Trinity Term, 1793, by the 
Attorney General. The cause was tried at the bar of the King's Bench, in 
Hilary Term, 1794. I was then too young in my profession to take part in 
a trial where the most eminent lawyers were engaged on the same side, 
with the precedence due to their experience, their standing, and the silk 
gown, I therefore undertook that duty by which I could best serve and 
gratify my friend, that of writing down what passed, to prevent others frona 
imposing false statements upon the public. It appears that a certain do- 
mestic occurrence invited my return to Belfast, where 1 bad a house, and 



^jj PREFACE. 

where I spent some of the vacations between the terms, and where my 
family then was. I had either transcribed rtiy notes before I left Dublin, or 
sent them back from Belfast to Mr. Rowan, then a prisoner under his sen- 
tence in Newgate, and employing himself in editing the report. My note 
was, I believe, afterwards collated, for more certainty, with the minutes 
of Mr. Ridgeway, a gentleman of the bar, who wrote short hand with great 
precision ; for I never could prevail with Curran to lend the smallest aid, 
and I believe he was utterly unconscious of many of the beauties of his own 
discourses. I knew that he was utterly incompetent to retrace them. This 
task he left entirely to the reporter. He once told me playfully, that if he 
had dropped any stiches, his gossip knew best.how to take them up. The 
following letter I received in Belfast." 

* DEAR SAMPSON, 

' I have executed your commission to Emmet faithfully. 
We have all very sincerely congratulated you on the fruits of your family 
toils, of which we are disposed to entertain the most favourable prognostics, 
and we do hereby offer you and your fellow labourer, our best and worthiest 
greetings thereupon. 

* As to my part I have so strong an hope, that young Agonistes will 
one day achieve, what by reason of his tendei years ne may not now be 
able to perform, that I should, without scruple, have become bound for him 
in a spiritual recognizance to any amount ; but, perhaps, not having yet 
decided under what banner he is to carry on the war of the flesh, he has 
not troubled himself with thinking of a bottle-holder. If he should talk 
about the matter, you may just hint to him that I pique myself upon a 
knowledge of the creed and ten commandments in the vulgar tongue. 

Emmet tells me the trial will be out on Monday. 

Yours very truly, 

J. P. CURRAN.' 

February 21, 1794. 

** The person here called Jlgonistes^ was my now only son John Fhilpot 
Curran Sampson, and the reader need not be told, that the ofifer was to be 
his god-father or sponsor : and it seems that he had been invited to name 
the child, for he shortly after writes thus :" 

* MY DEAR GOSSIP, 

* A man did so foolish a thing, as proposing to do very well what may 
be as well, perhaps better done middlingly, for he certainly postpones, and 
probably does it so much the worse. If any thing can save him from the 
consequences of his past coxcombry, it can be only the want of time when 
he comes to perform— so it has been with me. I felt a foolish propensity to 
write a fine letter to you, instead of answering promptly and kindly what I 



PREFACE. xiii 

felt very kindly, I have now but a moment to say what I should have said 
two posts ago. I am very much flattered by m}' god-child's opinion of my 
orthodoxy, and I most cheerfully vow as many things in his name as he 
thinks he may be able to perform. As to the name itself, I accept the per- 
mission with much gratitude, but must beg to make Mrs. Sampson my true 
and lawful attorney, in my name, and on my behalf, to name that name, 
wishing from my heart, that it may often give gladness to hers and to 
yours. 

* 1 should feel infinite pleasure in taking a trip to you, if my miserable 
avocations would leave it in my power to do so. I should wish to make my 
court to the young fellow before he got any prior liens upon his a flec- 
tions. If the levity of the age should unluckily catch him, he may chance 
to look upon my paternity with not so much reverence and regard as he 
ought to do. 1 received your enclosed, and as a friend and critic, I find our 
opinions not much asunder. Apropos — e contra — how do you find 1 look m 
your labours ? 

Yours sincerely, as also my gossips, 

J. P. CURRAN,' 

** This term gossip, hsiS various acceptations in the English language, it 
means sometimes a merry-maker or pot-companion, a prater generally, 
and more especially a tatling woman. In its strict etymological sense, it 
mesins relation ; in the canonical sense it is that spiritual afl5nity created 
by sponsorship, at the baptismal font : but in Ireland it has a sense con- 
nected with her fearful code and mournful history, that renders it an en- 
dearing expression of sympathy and affection. Thus we find Sir John 
Davies, the attorney-general of king James, in Ireland, in his ^discovery 
oj" the true causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued* speaking thus ; 
part 1. — 171, «^-c. ' For first it appeareth, by the preamble of these lawes, 
{the statutes oj' Kilkenny) that the English of this realme, before the coming 
over of Lionel duke of Clarence, were at that time become meere Irish in 
their language, names, apparell, and all their manner of living, and had 
rejected the English lawes, and submitted themselves to the Irish, with 
whom they had made many marriages and alliances, which tended to the 
utter ruine and destruction of the commonwealth. Therefore, alliaunce 
by marriage, nurture of infants, and gossipred with the Irish, are by this 
statute made high treason.* 

" Curran seemed tenacious of this word, and we find him writing in 1 803, 
from Paris, that he had refused to dine il^ith lady Oxford, because he had 
bargained for a Cabriolet, to go and see his gossip in the valley Montmo- 
rency ; and relating his adventure, as he related it with more humour to us, 
how he was wrong directed, and instead of seeing his god-son, went back 
to Saint Denis, where he was fleeced, and had nothing for his dinner but the 
landlord's bill. 



Xiy TREFACE. n 

" The biographer has truly said, that the magical effusions of his iaiher'ys 
genius, are better known by the traditions of his contemporaries, than by 
the most faithful reports of his speeches. This holds still more true with 
respect to his reputation as a wit, wherein 1 am sorry to say, he has been 
mercilessly dealt with. I may be but an indifferent judge of that quality 
of the mind, but chance has made me acquainted with a number of those, 
who, in my days have been most celebrated for it in various countries, and 
I have known none of any country, who had any pretensions to vie with 
Curran. Yet I cannot so much complain of his critics upon this score, for 
the selections of his jests, and bans motSy seem to have been made by gentle- 
men of the same cast as he who employed Mr. Mc. Kenzie to report the 
trial of Hamilton Rowan. I am sure I have heard from him a hundred 
pleasant sallies in the course of one convivial day, the very meanest oi which 
was preferable to the best I ever saw in print. 

" It is much to be regretted, that the Author was too young to have been 
the partaker of either of his father's convivial moments, or of his more 
serious thoughts during the epoch of his greatest celebrity. For since 
with borrowed materials he could form so fair a sketch, had he enjoyed 
those advantages, how true to life and nature would bis portrait then have 
been. But from the year 1792, till 1798, I can retrace in memory no other 
image of Mr. William Henry Curran, than as one of many children, playing 
about the house and gardens of the Priory. Having said so much, it might 
be expected, th^it I should exhibit some proofs, but the reading of this biog- 
raphy, has given to my thoughts and affections, a tone not at all suited to 
fhe recording of jokes. It is at any lime difficult, if not impossible, by any 
disposition of the letters of the alphabet, to communicate the point and spi« 
lit, the look, the gesture, and the apropos, that altogether go to constitute 
the grace and beauty of things too fine for handling ; things that can charm 
but once ; things that emit one transient gleam, and like the meteor of the 
i?hooting star, vanish as soon as seen. If they are not entirely lost by tra- 
dition, the finer part is sure to escape, the grosser only can be retained. 
No doubt many of Curran's homelier jests had better have remained in vul- 
gar tradition ; they were not intended to.be printed, but to please those 
who could take pleasure in them; for he disdained none of his fellow- 
fTfiatures, and loved to please them all. But strip these pleasantries of their 
mimic and scenic accompaniments, nay, even of the vernacular accent with 
which he could so humorously utter them, and set them in print with the 
formality of a jest book, to be reaj^ off with a cockney accent, and they will 
have as little charm as the broad scotch in Tom a Chanter^ or Old Mortality 
if delivered through the same organ. And how many have I pitied^" that 
from contracted prejudices, and want of travel in the intellect, were unable 
to suffer the sweet strains of Burn's, and the delightful historic tales of 
Walter Scott, by reason of their Scotch vulgarity! Upon the whole, how- 
ever, 1 think the author has shewn bis good sense in copying so few of those 



PREFACE. XV 

jokes into his biography, and in giving those few by the way of schedule 
annexed. 

•' Much also has been said and written against Curran's bad taste ; and 
alarm has been excited, as well in the Eastern as the Western hemisphere, 
least his followers should invade the privileged occupants of the hesperean 
gardens, and rob them of their golden fruits, which certain critics seem de- 
termined to watch like trusty dragons. I only hope they will at all timps be as 
ready to unfurl their banners, and as faithful in guarding their favored ter- 
ritory against every other invader. Bad taste is become a favorite phrase 
in the cant of modern criticism ; the more ancient maxim was, " de gustibus 
non eHdisputandum.^^ It would be well however, if these literary mathe- 
maticians would agree upon their moral standard of faith, before they ostra 
cise genius, and wit, and nature herself from the republic of letters. Where 
is their true standard, or their first meridian of which we hear so much and 
know so little ? Where is their archetype ? their shekel of the sanctuary ? 
Is it east or west of Temple bar ? Is it in Pekin or Connecticut ? Is their 
temple of Jupiter in Threadneedle-street or Paternoster-Row ? 'Is their 
standard formed from an ark of a great circle, or from the span of a literary 
dwarf ? 

" Until these questions be answered, it is still open to the academicians to 
dispute, whether he who could sway the learned and unlearned ; could 
charm the aged and the young ; who could call forth at pleasure, the smile 
or the tear ; could comfort the oppressed and appal the guilty ; could cast 
his magic spell on all around ; whose tongue, had it been venal, would 
have been bought at any price ; that he who could at once extort the ap- 
plause of his learned and grave antagonist, and the plaudits of those who 
shouted at the names of Titus Oates and Algernon Sidney in the hall, was 
an offender against good taste. [See the trial of Hamilton Ro-ao an ^ by P> 
B,yme,page\22.) 

*' Asjto the * Irish school of eloquence,' if it means the bad imitators of 
Curran, it is a fair subject of criticism, and any country that happens to be 
incommoded with such an annoyance, is under obligations to those that 
would arrest the contagion or remove the nuisance. 

" If there be such schools of perverse imitation the fault is not imputable 
to Curran, nor to Ireland. It is distressing to nie who was bom and educated 
in that country, and probably feel it the more, to see any orator affecting ta 
be what he is not. As when a man of a cold temperament abandoning his 
own gifts, and breaking loose from nature runs careering after the creations 
of anothers brain. I have seen such, who after beating their own flanks to 
gain artificial heat, would fall into a cold sweat. I have seen orators who if 
they had stood still, and spoken gravely, would have been respectable ; 
not content with that, taking their gestures and attitudes from figures of 
statuary, straining their voices even to cracking, and bearing no bad resem- 



^y[ PREFACE. 

hiancft to the inanimate inmap^es of Mermaids or Tritons in a fountain spout- 
iijg cold froth : and I acknowledge obligation to those who exert themselves 
to put down all such dull foppery. To Irishmen of any education this vio- 
Jence to taste and nature is peculiarly offensive ; and most of all v»rhen the 
j^ubject of such vaporish declamations happens to be poor Ireland, whose 
afflictiyns, without this addition, were enough. Painful indeed it is to those 
who have borne their portion of their country's sufferings, whose devotion 
has been solemn and sincere, whose deep and concentrated affections have 
been deposited like relics of what was dear, to be visited on due occasion in 
solitude and silence, to find the peace of the living, and the repose of the 
dead violated by the unfeeling exhibitions of mimes and buffoons, rioting 
and ranting over the sanctity of the grave. 

" With respect to Ireland, it is, unless much altered since I knew it, the 
last country in which such a school could subsist. 1 have known men in 
Ireland, whose elocution pleased, on some occasions, more than that of 
Curran ; but no one to dispute with him the palm of eloquence. There were 
few Irishmen of education that could not perceive his defects, but I never 
knew one so foolish as to attempt to imitate them. It is said Mr. Phillips 
has done so — I cannot agree in the remark. Certainly there is no kind of 
similitude between Mr. Phillips and Curran. And as to what Mr- Phillips 
has written from his recollections of Curran, he has laboured under the same 
<lisadvantages as Mr. William Henry. He, like him, is too young to have 
known him in his more brilliant days: and many of the anecdotes he re- 
lates of him, prove to me that Curran must have been much altered in his 
habits from the epoch of my intimacy with him, at which time I never heard 
the name of Mr. Phillips, whose celebrity is of a much later date, and 
whose beautiful poem of the " Emerald /s/e," was the first notice I ever 
had of bis existence. 

" I will not pretend to say, that when Mr. Phillips knew this celebrated 
man, he was not still capable of attracting his admiration, and maintaining 
the first place as an orator with every one of elevated taste or sentiment. 
But I could see even in the year 1803, when he was in Paris, that his vigour 
was impaired ; tbotigh even there*! was asked by good judges of the human 
rharacter who never heard his history, what interesting, extraordinary 
man that friend of mine was, who appeared above the common. But it 
is too evident, from his own confidential letters, and every thing related of 
him, proves, that from the time the knell of his country's independence was 
tolled, his spirit sunk, as his great type Cicero, when the Senate and the 
Forum were no longer open to his free exertions, drooped bis wing, grew 
sad and fretful, even with his friends ; so it was with Curran, " a mountain 
of lead was on his heart," his genius faded, and like the green bow when 
severed from the mother stem tliat nurtured it, his verdure withered, hi& 
ppir'tt bloomed no mor^j. 



PREFACE. Xvii 

" The period of my acquaintance with Curran, doubtless included that 
part of his life which was of most importance to the public. It began shortly 
after my admission to the bar, in 1792, and the manner in which it came 
about was this : I had been waiting in the court of Exchequer a whole day 
in hopes of having my voice heard in court for the first time, but the day was 
occupied by an argument, which to me seemed unmercifully prolix, con- 
sidering that my business, though little more than the reading of a notice, 
would have entitled me to the compliments of my young friends on the 
occasion of my launch. I revenged myself with an epigram, written on a 
blank leaf of my brief, in which I fear there was more of the petulance of 
youth than there was of wit or discretion. 1 remember it compared the 
argument of the learned counsel to a sluggish, oozy, muddy, winding riv- 
er, overflowing its bed, and leaving no point of its direction distinct or 
visible, sweeping along with lazy pomp, trodden flowers, and withered 
weeds, and it ended with this doggerel stanza — 

" Leaving nothing he could find, 
But his clients cause behind.'* 

I blush to think of it at the end of near thirty years, and yet it was to that 
folly that I owed the first acquaintance with the most interesting personage 
I ever knew, or perhaps that any man ever saw. It was snatched from me 
by a waggish young friend who sent it about ; it found its way among the 
senior counsel to Curran, who being directed to the spot it proceeded from, 
looked, and met the eyes of my betrayer (Mr. O'Regan) who seemed to 
acknowledge the offence with a modest air of contrition. Curran, when 
the court rose, singled him out and introducing himself as a brother poetaster, 
invited him to spend the folfowing day at his country house, and lent him 
his grey mare to go a hunting The next day my friend thanked me in the 
ball of the four courts for his entertainment, saying he had dined and hunted 
on my epigram. Curran summoned us both to appear at a future day, to 
void the quarrel, at the Priory, when the raillery that passed upon this little 
adventure made part of the entertainment. 

*' This acquaintance had ripened into confidence and friendship at the time 
when the British Cabinet, with Mr. Pitt at their head, saw the necessity of 
making concessions to the Irish nation ; finding that terror and coercion 
had no other effect than to irritate and alienate a whole kingdom when union 
was so necessary to their own ends. I suspected at that time that Mr. Pitt 
had a view to a legislative union, and predicted pretty nearly what has since 
happened, in a pamphlet called " advice to the rich." This class of the 
community was at that period so artfully alarmed, that through fear of a pop- 
ular revolution they began to pledge their lives and fortunes to support the 
constitution of Ireland by King, Lords, and Commons ; little thinking that 
he who dictated these addresses and was the author of these alarms, meant 
that Ireland should e'er long have neither Lords nor Commons. 



•Mlwillberproliocledtha'iCurran wasdesignaledto lill the important 
office of Solicitor f.enoral urulor ti.e new administration. 1 was consulted by 
him and his colle.fiuos upon the best means of winning back the estranged , 
affections of the North. And if any man could be an impartial witness of 
the transactions of those days, I tijink I might be so considered •. for 1 had 
no project or political view whatever, and was no more than a common 
friend to all that wished their country's good, and very desirous also ot 
conciliation if it had been practicable ; I assume it, however, upon the 
creditor Earl Filzwilliam, th^t he was commissioned by the authority of 
the King, and directly by his minister-;, to offer terms of conciliation to the 
Irish people, and that the conditions were arranged between the Duke of 
Portland and this viceroy. And it is praise enough to the United Irishmen, 
that the measure which gave equal contentment to Catholic and Protestant 
^vas Catholic emnnnpaiion. So efficient had been the eflbrts of that associa- 
tion, to restore their deluded country to the dignity of reason and the chan- 
ties of the gospel, that a measure which would but a few years before have 
been furiously opposed by Proteslnnts of every denomination,- became now 
the subject of petitions and arlt'tresses, pouring forth congratulations, thanks 
and praise : so effectually had the advocates of " nnivcrsal emancipation' 
weeded out the tares the fiend had sown. But no sooner was it found that 
instead of contention, union amongst Irishmen was to be the result ; than 
Earl Fitzwilliam was recalled and with him the proffered boon. 

" Some members of the new intended administration have been charged 
with too great eagerness to vault into the saddle, and too great faciHty in 
v6ting supplies, and pledging their country to " stand or fall with England." 
without any pledge of reciprocity. As to Curran I am sure, and all his acts 
and speeches well ronfirm it, he never did separate himself from the inter- 
ests of Ireland, and whatever was his disappointment or regret, I am con- 
vinced his country shared his honest grief. The consequences of Earl 
Fitzwilliam's recall, in turning one member of the empire against the other, 
a«d the necessary accumulation of armies, fleets, and placemen, if fairly 
calculated, would prove one, and no inconsiderable cause, why the children 
of Englishmen now cry in vain for bread. 

" Volumes could not contain the atrocities that followed, the soul sickens 
at the recollection of them : it is in such times however tiiat the virtues of 
men are tried: it was now that those of Curran shone forth in all their 
lastre ; but unluckily for his fame, the press, which is the tongue ofhisto- 
torv, and the true organ of ine public voice was still and silent, save only 
when it croaked its sinister ill omened notes, and 

' like the raven o'er the haunted house boded to ill' 
" The northern star was destroyed by the troops under General Lake in 
the beginning of 1797, and the press, which shortly shared the same fate, 
was not commenced till the end of that year, and therefore it was that about 



PREFACE, Xix 

this time I formed an association of all that was bent, in and out of parlia- 
ment, for the purpose of collecting: the proofs of these execrable misdeeds. 
Some of them were stated by Lord Moira, who offered to prove their truth 
at the bar both of the English and the Irish house of Lords; part was burned 
by a gentleman to whom I had committed them, through fear that if found 
with him he might be killed or tortured by the terrorists. 

'' The first attempts to hang men for taking the obligat ion to promote re 
form and religious reconciliation, were made at the Spring or Lent assizes 
in the year 1797, but the country was not yet subdued, the prisoners were 
acquitted, and as Mr. Grattan said, ' after Ijeing led through their counties 
as traitors, and above a year confined in gaol, they carried about in their 
persons the living evidence of a convicted government, and an expired con- 
stitution.' 

"" I was generally engaged for those on the North east Circuit, chained 
with treason, sedition and union. I had a full opportunity of knowing 
their sentiments when nothing was, or could be concealed from me. I was 
here also a disinterested witness, for i was connected with the accused at 
that time by no tie, but the sympathies of humanity ; and certainly not by 
interest, since all my hopes of advancement lay the other wa}'. I write this 
in a community where I am known, where many others of those whom they 
called traitors, have lived for a long series of years, and are thoroughly 
known : and in this community I think we will find credit, and therefore I 
speak truth, in confidence that my veracity will not be questioned. 

" It shocked me to see hundreds of thousands of my countrj'^men, amongst 
whom were many possessing all the purity, and all the virtue that could 
adorn their species branded as traitors, and living at the mercy of the veri- 
est and the vilest traitors. Manhood could nor ought not to endure it ; and 
seeing the crisis at hand when there could be no more neutrality, I took in 
Open Court the oath of the United Irishmen, repeating it from the very do- 
cument on which my Client then stood upon his trial, for his life or his death. 
I learned afterwards that Thos. Addis Emmet had in an opposite extremity 
of the Kingdom, without any concert between u>, done the same thing, from 
a like impulse ; and having done so, defied the grand jurj^ to indict him. 

" I did not do this in the spirit of bravado or romance, but because i ha- 
iiid dissimulation, and felt a consciousness that I was doing wdiat became 
me, and I never have repented of it. 

" The triumph of the people however at this period was great and signal. 
Meetings were convened in the County towns by the Sheriffs, or the princi- 
pal freeholders, and petitions to the King were resolved upon, praying for 
peace, reform, catholic emancipation, and dismissal of ministers. 1 drew 
Up one with my own hand in a few minutes, snatched from a trial in which 
1 was engaged, and so much was it in unison w ith the public feeling, that it 
was passed without alteration or dissent by the rich and populous county of 
Down. 



XX PREFACE. 

** But between this and tlic Summer Assizes ortlie same year llie terror 
was redoubled ; the gaols were crowded more than before with persons 
committed under the gunpowder act, the convention act, the habeas corpus 
suspension act, and other acts, proclamations, and pretences. The trials 
were preluded by torture, houseburning, massacre, and every species of 
terror that could intimidate and appal prisoners, jurors, witnesses, agents, 
and counsel. Despair had driven the United Irishmen, as I afterwards 
Jearned, for I did not then know it, to form an alliance with France. And 
many prominent men, who had joined the association late and reluctantly, 
were instrumental in that measure — such is the effect of tyranny. But all 
who had not nerve for such a struggle fell back, and many, swore constrain- 
ed oaths, for which they got but little credit, and which did not always save 
them from torture or persecution ; added to all this, it became the practice 
of parliament to pass bills of indemnity to screen the offenders ; so that all 
complaint, all hopes of redress, all appeals to the law, were utterly in vain. 

*' The friends of the prisoners now found it necessary to engage in their 
defence the powerful aid of Curran's talents ; and I was associated with him 
in more than a hundred causes. 

" The scene grew darker still and darker. Military violence had not yet 
entirely closed the courts of law : the robe still showed the judge, and the 
bayonet the soldier ; but like Kirk and Jeffreys they marched hand in hand, 
making their unhallowed rounds together. It was now that Curran, diving 
into the very souls of the accused and the condemned, had that full evi- 
dence upon which he assured his friendly adversary (Lord Kilwarden), that 
these men were not what they had been represented ; that their hearts were 
honest, and their cause was that of Ireland. It was here that he employed 
his greatest efforts to save the lives of men deserving of a better fate, and 
where the loftier powers of his eloquence could not avail, he resorted to the 
other various means which his ingenuity could furnish. One instance may 
suffice to show, how wit, or even humour, may serve to effect a grave and 
generous purpose which nothing else could bring about. 

" There was a brave and honest individual condemned to death for the 
crime of union. Though upright and courageous, he was not considered very- 
dangerous ; and he had friends amon.<^st those that dealt out life or death. 
Curran could not save him from his jury, but it w^as suggested that on due 
submission he might be respited and pardoned. The greatest difficulty 
however still remained in the firm and stubborn honour of the man himself. 
He was sworn, he was above the order of the poor, and the poor who shared 
his crime, had shared no mercy; he refused all submissions, or to set an ex- 
ample that might reflect on his fidelity. All the persuasions of his eloquent 
advocate could not so much as move him, till seeing into his character, he 
hit upon a way to gain him through his pride. He reminded him that he 
and the King were the only parties to the record, that the rest \KeTe,meddle' 
$ome fellows that had nothing to do between them, and were not worth his 



PREFACE. xxi 

notice ; and as to the King he so represented his infirmity, that it would not 
become a United Irishman, ' to even his mit to him,'' This argument suc- 
ceeded when the terrors of death could not. The prisoner begged pardon 
of the King, and afterwards as 1 have heard emigrated to this republic, 
where if he still lives he can confirm the story, but to return : 

*' It was during this summer circuit of 1797, that having retired to rest 
after a day of fatigue and anxiety, I was awoke in the night by the appella- 
tion o( Gossip ; and looking up, Isaw on a corner ormy bed with his feet 
gathered up under him, that illustrious orator, whose^oice had a few hours 
before hurled defiance at the proud, and whose eyes had shot their piercing- 
glances through the guilty heart. That voice was now'soft and subdued, those 
eyes now lowly and dejected. I looked at him for a time as he did at me 
before either spoke- He held a glimmering candle in his hand, and his ap- 
pearance to say the very least^as picturesque. I would have laughed, bit 
I saw his heart was sad. He at length opened the object of his visit. His 
mind was full of gloomy presages, and he had tried in vain to sleep. All 
hopes of conciliation were now past, and nothing but civil war could fol- 
low : crime on one side must in the nature of things produce crimes upon 
the other ; the country must bleed, and good men fall. He had almost de- 
termined to retire, not only from public life, but from a land still destined 
to sorrow and oppression. He put before me the dangers I was threatened 
with, and asked if I would accompany him. I told him that I was now 
sworn and pledged, and must stay and take my chance. He then asked me 
how much I thought one of his unostentatious habits could live for in France 
so as not to be positively excluded from good company. I told him I 
thought a colonel's half pay might do; and if he would brush his own 
coat, and turn his cravat the second day, have the Court calender by heart, 
and talk of his noble friends and relations, he-might come near the fag end 
of the nobility. I had heard of one traveller that by merely putting out his 
tongue, provided for his whole army ; and though my gossip's tongue did 
not afford so great a cavity as Garagantua's, yet I thought it would as gooti 
a passport to society, and might provide for one such little body : that if he- 
could produce his passport now I would countersign it, and then would re- 
commend it to him to go to sleep, that he might be ready for his journey in 
the morning, and in thetnean time leave me to my rest. He took this in 
good part, made a flourish with his tongue to show he understood me, and 
went off without more words, but sending me back a lookof the Irish school 
of eloquence which the wit of man is not equal to translate, and which I 
would advise no man to imitate. The next morning he thanked me for 
having made him laugh, and promised as much for me, when it was my 
turn of the blue de\'^f^h But he had not relinquished his project, and 1 think 
if I had accompanied, or even encouraged him he would have put it ia 
execution. 



xxii PUF.FACE. 

*' Let no man then believe that John Pliilpot Cunan lay upon roses when 
his country writhed on tlie bed of torture. Oiall the victims of those dis- 
astrous times (ew paid more dearly lor their country's love than he. He 
was at one time so ran down, that it required courage to be seen walking 
by his side. His domestic grief was made the prey of his enemies, and 
those who laughed at decorum and the decencies of life became sanctified 
in their upbraiding:? of him. I was reproached for letting wy child still 
bear the name by wmch he was baptised. But least it should be said that 
he must by some singular misdeeds have deserved this contumely, 1 must 
remind the reader that G rattan was no less vituperated He too was loaded 
with obloquy by those whose crimes he h^d arraigned, and not merely vitu- 
perated as Curran was, but disfranchised by the corporation of the city he 
so often represented ; and his portrait which hung in the University as a 
trophy, placed through vulgar derision in the privy. 

" The last actof Curran's which I shall notice, is that which does him the 
most honour. The fate of Theobald Wolfe Tone is set down in history 
aod need not be repeated here, further than the generous conduct of Curran 
connects their names and ma:kes it fitting that they should be recorded to- 
gether in one page. Tone, W'hen brought before his judges to answer per- 
sonally for his treason, scorned to equivocate with the truth, or to quibble in 
a cause in which his life and honour were alike at stake. He at once ad- 
milted the chai-ges in their full extent. He stooped to ask one favour, and 
but one. He had served in the French army as a chief of Brigade and 
wore his uniform. He was now before a Court Martial by whom he was to 
be sentenced ; and he asked no more than was consistent with their duty, 
and what was granted to the French emigrants standing before their judges 
just as he did betbre his court— to die a soldier's death. The court, struck 
with the dignity of his address, refnained sometime in silence, and then 
promised that his request, together with his sentence, should be laid before 
the Lord Lieutenant. 

*' At this trying moment he stood alone without other resource than in the 
courage of his own manly heart. The friends that would have comforted 
hijn were buried in dungeons or in graves. There were some who in his 
happier days had followed him, and courted him, and quickened in the sun- 
shine of his wit and social mirth, that now turned away their countenancr-s 
and shut their frozen hearts, and either left him or led him to his fate. But 
in this cheerless and desolate position, he had a friend and advocate where 
he could least have looked for it : that friend, that generous advocate was 
Curran. 

" That this may appear in its true light, it should be known that though 
both Tone and Curran loved their country, yet their*ntilitical views were 
altogether different. Tone from his early days, as he said before his court 
martial, considered the connexion with England as the scourge of the Irish 
nation. Curran professed whig principles, and thought, that with a reform 



PREFACE. XXlii 

in the parliament, alTtlie good attainable might be achieved. His princi- 
ples had been the suiiject of Tone's strong animadversions and keenest 
raillery: but all offence was bushed, all political hostility was merged in 
sympathy for the heroic sufferer. 1 should mention one of 'I'one's former 
friends whom Curran rallied to him, the time may come when he or his 
descendants may derive more honour from the fact than the betrayers of 
their country from ill earned titles. It was Mr. Peter Burrows, a distin- 
guished member of the Irish bar. They consulted and found as they hoped 
a means to save him, not merely from the mode of death he deprecated^ 
but from death itself which he had fondly courted. 

" At this time I was a prisoner on parole, having embarked in pursuance 
of my contract with the government for Portugal ; but having been blown 
back several times into the same harbour. Curran called daily to inquire 
how I fared, or in my absence to console my famil3^ He spoke of Tone with 
the same interest as though they had been inseparable friends, and devoted 
himself with more zeal than though he had received the most lavish fee, and 
M^ith a sincerity that marked a noble nature. 

** The court that tried and sentenced Tone was composed of seven mili- 
tary officers convened in the barrack of Dublin, and sat upon his trial at the 
same time that the Court of King's Bench was sitting, during Michaelmas 
Term, in the year 1798. He was not amenable to a court martial, not be- 
longing to the army of the King ; and the court martial had no right to try him 
for high treason, sitting the King's Bench. Curran moved for and obtained a 
habeas corpus to bring him up before the court. It was immediately served 
upon the provost marshal (Major Sandjrs.) This was the keeper of a 
torture house, whose name is but too notorious in the annals of the times. 
He returned for answer that he would obey no orders but those of the Com- 
mander in Chief of the garrison. The court directed the sheriff to take him 
into custody and bring him before them : he was not to be found, but Tone 
was found withhis neck deeply wounded and weltering in his blood. 

" It was said that on the preceding evening (Sunday) he had been of/i- 
daily informed that his sentence was confirmed and his request denied, and 
had therefore done this execution on himself; some said with a razor, some 
with a pane of glass because he had no razor. Of this 1 can know nothing. 
It was said that he spoke afterwards ; I never heard of any friend that heard 
him speak after this wound. It was however stated that he observed he 
1 was a bad anatomist, in having missed his end. 

" However this might be it was but of a piece with all the rest of Ireland's 
fatal story. For never did fear or necessity extort from her oppressive 
rulers an act that looked like grace, or policy dictate a transient show of 
lenity, but some demoniac spirit interposed, and shaped it into treachery 
and cruelty. It was so of old, it was so with Byrne, it was so with Bond, it 
was so with Orr, it was so at the massacre of the Curragh of Kildare, it 
proved so too with Tone. 



^xiv PREFACE. 

" I will not say that be was murdered— I would not slander by saying 
what I do not know, not even a murderer by trade. That he chose the 
manner vi his own death was rendered plausible by many circumstances. 
His sentence was not warranted under llie circumstances of the case by any 
1,1 w civil or military. The mode of punishment then, was only intended to 
disgrace him and the uniform he wore ; or to expose his aged parents to a 
lepetition of the insults and exultations of the government rabble, his trial 
having followed close upon the execution of a brother, taken like him in 
jirms. He might perhaps have feared the loss of lives in some vain attempt 
to rescue him. Nor could this act be called a suicide in the criminal sense 
that christains view it, but rather resembled the expedient of the soldier who 
when about to be tortuiod by savages, disappointed their ferocity by giving 
them his head. The end was that he lingered for a week and then died a? 
he lived, great of heart and mind. 

** That Curran must have succeeded in rescuing him from the hands of the 
military tribunal and its sentence, is most evident ; and considering the cir- 
cumstances of the times and the chances and changes that fall out in periods 
of desultory policy, when vengeance, fear, or personal rivalry, and other 
disavowed or unseen motives take the reigns in turns, it was not improbable 
that Tone's life might have been saved, even in spite of his determined pur- 
pose to accept no favour. The civil war was ended ; the government had 
treated with the directors of the union, and the men who formed the alliance 
with the French. Lord Cornwallis had openly censured the crimes and 
cruelties of the Orange faction, and professed to act upon a system of mode- 
ration and amnesty. Even Nappei' Tandy, the most proscribed of all that 
bore arms or rebelled, had been exchanged for a British general and sent 
back to France in a British vessel to enjoy his rank and pay as a French 
general for the remainder of his life. He had been specially, and by name, 
excepted out of the amnesty act, and so great had been the avidity to have his 
person and his life that not only great rewards were set upon his head, but 
a British plenipotentiary violated the honour of the diplomacy and the rights 
of nations, taking upon himself the office of constable, and imposing upon 
the senate of a free and neutral city the office of gaolers. When it is con- 
sidered that this man after lying so long in foreign dungeons and in irons, 
was brought to Ireland, tried and convicted, and every thing but executed, 
and afterwards given up on the simple requisition of Napoleon, how much 
reason was there not for Curran to hope that he might save the life of this 
brave man ? 

*' Some have asked why Curran, if he felt the wrongs of Ireland as he de- 
scribed them, contented himself witl» talking, leaving to others the post of 
danger — how he, if his affections were so engaged, and his sentiments so 
decided, could flutter like the moth round the taper and come off unhurt ; 
and also, how, after that ill omened union that extinguished in blood the 
runstitution of his country, he could submit to kis« the hand of the oppressor 



PREFACE. XXV 

and kneel or stoop for favour. I have already shewn that he was not un- 
hurt, but assailed, and vvonnded even in the tenderest part ; and if he was 
not consigned with other men of patriotic virtue to a dungeon or a hulk, it 
was most probably because his seat in parliament exempted him from the 
operation of the law that suspended the habeas corpus act. 

And now a word touching the Edinburgh Reviewers before I take my 
leave. To dispute their talents would be to disparage my own judgment. 
Their writings have been long my chief literary recreation. Their luminous 
conceptions, and polished style, have given them a sway, which like all 
other power if abused may become dangerous and despotic ; and when it 
verges towards that point it becomes a civic duty to sound the tocsin of 
alarm. 

" I do not however profess to enter the lists as a champion against such 
formidable adversaries, I should rather submit, and even pay them black 
mail than wage an impotent war, and indeed the combat would be every 
way too unequal between one ' Whose sword hangs rusting on the wall* and 
so many knights of fame 

* Ten of them were sheathed in steel, 
With belted Sword, and spur on heel ; 
They quitted not their harness bright, 
Neither by day, nor yet by night ; 

They lay down to rest, 

With corslet laced, 
Pillowed on buckler ci'tld and hard : 

They carved at the meal 

With gloves of sleel. 
And they drank the red wine through the helnnet barred.' 

" I shall therefore content myself with an appeal to the good sense of 
these gentlemen who are the fittest to correct their own errors, if any they 
have fallen into ; but still in doing this, I shall use the like freedom by 
them as they do by others. 

*' I think then that their strictures upon some passages of this biography 
have been too fastidious, or, to borrow a sprightlier phrase of their own, 
* too smart and snappish.' 

*' I think they have not viewd the story of the birth, and birth place of 
Curran's eloquence, of poor Apjohn and Duhigg, and the victory over the 
devil of temple bar, with their accustomed candour or discrimination. Had 
they known more of the men and manners they were censuring, they would 
never have supposed that this story was taken down by the author from his 
father's lips : indeed they would smile at their own innocent mistake. 

" They say it is not the very best style of wit or talk that they have met 
with. But who has said it was ? Its beauty, if it has any, is that it is entirely 
without such pretension, and is related simply as a part of the history of 
John Philpot Curran. The observation, or question, of his friend was, 
whether bis gift was from art or nature, or whether his eloquence was born 



^^yi PREFACE. 

with aim. And Ibe answer was, the history of its origin, shewing how 
much it was owing to accident and circumstances ; and when Curran was 
thus chearfully complying with the desire of his friend, he was too unaffect- 
ed, and too natural to think of making a display ; and yet he gave it as it 
came, and as it was. 

*' As to the siory of Mr. Boyse, I think that there also these accomplish- 
ed critics have misconceived both the moral and the fact. Curran unex- 
pectedly meets the friend who had first sown in his tender mind the seeds 
of diat honour and prosperity which he then enjoyed. 11 is heart throbs-— 
he requests his benefactor to take possession of his house, till his return 
from the duties of the day. Hf^ gathers together a few friends of his youth, 
who like himself had attained to honour nnd distinction, to share^his plea- 
sure, and grace the entertainment of his guest. In the presence of these 
sympathising friends, he pours out the abundance of his gratitude, and the 
reviewers call this ' their debut before various learned sergeants and pri- 
mates of the bar assembled on the occasion ;' and they think no Englishman 
can avoid feeling that the speech of the clergyman is rude and indelicate, 
and that of his friend dreadfully too theatrical to be tolerated in private so- 
ciety. Did the good feelings of these gentlemen never teach them, that 
true and genuine affection, because it shuns all exlrtbition, will be fain at 
times to hide itself under the show of bluntness ? And upon what ground do 
they assume that these friends, all sergeants as they might be, oy primates 
as they are called, could not be at once, learned and humane. Does it fol- 
low that men cannot be learned, but at the expence of the best feelings of 
man's nature ? and could ihey see nothing in this interesting scene but a 
debut, or exhibition ? 

*' Indeed this censure is so forced, that it seems to have involved the 
learned commentators in some confusion of ideas, not very usual with them ; 
for they say that all this might h^ ver}^ well between the irvo Jriendsy but 
it was dreadfully too theatrical for a private society. * In our fastidious 
country' they say, ' we really have no idea of a man talking pathetically in 
good company, and still less of good company sitting and crying to him. 
Nay, it is not very consistent,' they add, ' with our notions, that a gentle- 
man should be most comical.' The expression of the author hardly war- 
ranted this observation. He was speaking of the variety of his father's con- 
versation, which abounded in those magical transitions, from the most comic 
turn of thought to the deepest pathos ; for ever bringing a tear into their 
eye before the smile ' was off the lip.' From these and other passages, 
these gentlemen are led to suspect, that the Irish standard of good conver- 
sation is radically different from the English. For my own part, having 
spent half my life in Ireland, and the other half in various other countries, 
and having seen some good company both in England and Scotland, 1 am 
much at a loss to find upon what ti»ese observations are founded ; I have 
generally found least said about good company in good company ; and those 



PREFACE. XXVii 

to please the most who dealt the least in precepts of book conversation. I 
am now an American, and equally distant, with the exception of a very little 
arm of the sea from the one and the other island, and the way we unsophis- 
ticated Americans think upon these subjects is this ; we find that 'od has 
given to man two distinct characters, by which, though all the rest were 
lost or effaced, he might be defined and distinguished from the brute crea- 
tion — * the smile and the tear,'' — Here then are two schools of conversation— 
too rival gymansia, one on each side of the channel of Saint George. The 
disciples of the one neither admit of laughter or of tears : or if they do, it 
must be serio-comic mirth, of that nature, that cannot excite a tear. 

** The other school, abandoning the whole transnatural regions, to their 
more refined and attic neighbours, assemble round the festive board, and as 
the wine flows, and the blood and spirits circulate, they make the course o^ 
their humanities. By laughter they prove, if not that they are gentlemen^ 
at least that they are men. And if any unexpected touch of pathos brings the 
tear into their eye, and their philosophy which is that of nature, traces the 
cause through the effect. They acknowledge a power beyond themselves, 
and find the literal humaniores written in their hearts, by him who made the 
laws essential to their moral and material frame : and they ackno*vledge him 
who made the tear to flow, to be the same who made the wafer issue from 
the rock. 

** The world must judge then, which is the better school. If there be 
any law it must be international. For my part if this be the only, or radical 
difference between the rival standards, I do not wonder, that ' before the 
comeing of Lionel Duke of Clarence, the English in their language and ap- 
parrell, and all their manner of liveing, had submitted themselves entirely 
to the Irish.' And the compliment is perhaps better than was intended to 
the Irish school. 

*' As regards the danger of bad imitation, let these accomplished critics 
beware how their own kibes are galled, for though it be given to few to imi- 
tate the Scotch reviewers in their extensive knowledge, and great range of 
thought, or in the strength and clearness of their diction, yet every art and 
science has its jargon, and the cant of criticism about taste and good con- 
versation is what the parrot may learn, and the cuckoo sing, to the great 
disturbance of whatever is genuine, natural, or manly. 

" What kind of person would John Philpot Curran have been, if he had 
formed himself upon these straight lined rules. Would Homer have been 
worshipped as a God, or would he not, if they prevailed be kicked out of 
good company, as in that barbarous age when he first sung his ballads 
through the streets of the Greek cities ? Would not Shakespear be the next 
victim of this rage? and Tully whose jocularity was his right arm, whose 
pleasure was to shew his wit among his friends, and who confesses that he 
^oved his own jokes best, and that they were but ' auicquid in buccamvene" 



^xviii FliKrACK. 

riC Whose jests filled three whole v©lumes : how would he be censured 
for being so ' vastly comical ?' 

*' There is perhaps one way to reconcile and draw advantage from their 
difierences, by bringing about a friendly connmerce. 

** Let the North Britons consign to their Hibernian neighbours what they 
have to spare of the menial philosophy, and their systems ideal and non* 
ideal ^Sind o( theiv semi-voluniary operations of the intellect, and the Irish in 
return supply them with their surplus heart and soul, and let this be hereaf* 
ter called the channel trade. 

*' But it is time to quit these trifles, and render justice to that dignity 
which belongs to these writers whenever they assume their proper attitude 
and station. 

' These things,' they say, speaking of Curran's wit, &c. *are of little conse. 
quence, Mr. Curran was something better than asayerof smart th'ngs. He 
l,W'as a lover of his country, and its fearless, its devoted, and indefatigable 
servant. To his energy and talents she was perhaps indebted for some 
mitigation of her sufferings in the days of her calamity, and to these the 
public has been at all events indebted in a great degree for the knowledge 
they have of her wrongs, and for the feeling which that knowledge has ex- 
cited, of the necessity of granting them redress. It is in this character he 
most wished to be remembered, and in which he has most deserved it.* 

" Such manly language, would alone, if atonement were due, for all the 
censures upon the wit, the style, or the manner of Curran, and Ireland owes 
to these authors this acknowledgment besides, that when the minions of 
despotism so long combined against her, perverted her cause, and sided 
with her tyrants, they still respected the country of 'feeling hearts and elo- 
quent tongues.' And though they should not be converted to the Irish 
standard of wit or conversation, I trust that upon more acquaintance they 
will find reason to admit, and to assert, that virtues of a higher kind than 
either taste or genius lie buried in the graves of Irish traitors. 

" But on this subject I shall trust myself no further, I have already de- 
tained the reader too long from better matter ; I have spoken more of my- 
self than perhaps I ought, and more of Ireland than I had intended. Such 
fruitless recollections of her sufferings cannot change her destiny. If I can 
cherish any hope for her, it is in the steady march of the free and prosperous 
repiiblic of which I am now a citizen. If integrity and union shall continue 
to direct her counsels ; if native health and vigour still prove a match for the 
attacks which corrupt intrigue and foreign influence will never fail to make 
upon her freedom and renown. If honesty be cherished as it ought, and 
fraud discountenanced, and law administered with firm impartiality ; If re- 
ligion, the chastener of the public morals, be still pure and holy, untainted 
by hypocrisy or guile ; if all these blessings shall continue to her; if the 
mild wisdom of her Franklin, and the farewell voice, and warning accents 
of her Washington, be ever in the ears and heafrts of all her citizens ; then 



PREFACE. xxix 

may the great example stronger than armed millions work to the end of 
* UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION.' 



** Saturday, September 25. 

" I send you the preface unfinished as it is that I may not be guilty 
of a breach of promise. 1 am sorry that it should go in so imperfect a state. 
It was written under the disadvantages of hourly interruption, of which you 
were a witness ; and contains first thoughts and expressions of feeling which 
would require correction and retrenchment. 1 should in justice to myself 
observe, that I am no bigot, and very far from meaning, that all who were 
United Irishmen were virtuous, or all that were with the government vici- 
ous. I have no spirit of vengeance in my heart, and if forgiveness of my 
persecutors would contribute to my native country's welfare, I would 
forgive them all. I can add no more. The enclosed letters of reverend and 
honoured men and citizens will be my excuse. You will see that my only 
son is now no more. You will read in the expressions of private and public 
regret, what must be the affliction of my heart. I could not foresee when 
I retraced the image of past days, and revived the cheerful recollections 
of his dawn of life, that this paper should be moistened with a father's 
tears : that when I mentioned that name, that was often to give gladness to 
a father's and a mother's heart, the shaft was already sped that was to 
give those hearts a wound which time may soothe, but only death caa 
curCj—Grief like what I now feel has but few words. Yours Sir, 

respectfully and kindly. 

WILLIAM SAMPSON.»» 
Mr. Creagh. 



The Publisher begs ike indulgence of the public for not delivering the 
work at the time specified in the prospectus. — The delay grew out of the of- 
Jticting event above recited. 

It affords the Publisher a melancholy pleasure to be able to make some 
atonement^ if any were necessary^ for this delay, by the insertion of the fol- 
lowing articles^ which reflect the greatest credit on the heads and hearts of 
iJieir authors^ and show that the genius of Curran was inherited by his god' 
child. The first is a letter of condolence from the Rev. Mr, Hull of NeW' 
Orleans. * The Obituary notice appeared in the Louisiana Advertiser ^ of 
which paper the late Mr. Sampson was Editor. 
New-York, October 2Ut. 1820. 

New-Orleans, 26th*Augu9T, 1820. 

Dear Sir, 

Ere this communication reaches you, the letter of a friend 
from this place, (Mr Spicer) will have advertised you of the alarming dis- 
ease with which your son was attacked, and under which he was then la- 
bouring. It has been made the melancholy duty of him, who now addresses 
you ; and whom you may probably recognize as having been introduced to 
your family four years ago, to inform you, that this beloved son has fallen a 
victim to the dreadful aad sweeping scourge of our climate and city. 



^^j^ niEFACE. 

However welf, Sir, some might think it would become my station, I pre- 
sume not to offer, on this cruel bereavement, the ordmary, sickly, and 
mawkish sentiment of condolence often taught myself by sad suffering, and, 
in this dread visitation, feeiine: how much even a stranger has lost, 1 abstain 
from attempting to offer a consolation to his family, which I am persuaded, 
could not but be insulting and provocative. And how shall they, who want 
comfort themselves, attempt to impart it ? We feel that your accomplished 
son was not ?/ours— he was ours. He had incorporated himsell with our 
feelings— He had identified himself with our narrowest and most extended 
interests. He was our delight in private, and promised to be our glory la 
publick life. 

I consider it, my dear sir, a part of my heart rending task to assure you, 
that during your son's illness, every necessary attention was paid him— 
that he has sunk from our view in despite of every effort of tender assiduity, 
and the most prompt displays of professional skill, exhibited in airy and 
spacious rooms occupied by the lamented sufferer. 

Nothing was wantii^g, which could be supposed to have a tendency td 
soothe his sufferings, or dispel their cause. 

The interest he'had excited in this community, summoned around him 
friends of all descriptions to administer to his wants — and if affection tor 
him, and a just estimation of his worth could have rescued him, I should 
have been spared the pain of writing, and you the torture of reading this 
letter. 

Permit me to add, that this distinguished victim retained his fine faculties 
in great perfection to the last— having the fullest confidence in his physi- 
cians, his spirits did not become depressed, till within a few hours of his 
dissolution, that awful symptom, the black vomit made its appearance. He 
then surrendered himself in a calm and manly manner to his approaching 
fate— confining himself to expressions of regret, that he could not have lived 
longer, that he might have been more useful ; and to groans of poignant 
grief for the dreadful wound, which he was aware his premature departure 
must inflict upon his beloved parents, and sister- 

i need scarcely subjoin that the body of your son was committed to the 
tomb under suitable demonstrations of social regard, accompanied by the 
prescribed and solemn rites of the church. 

Afflicted relatives of John Philpot Curran Sampson, farevyell! I have 
feebly, perhaps coarsely, discharged my mournful office ; permit, now, the 
tears of a friend, and those of a sympathizing community to mingle with 
yours ; may a firm assurance of this extended sympathy produce an allevi» 
ation of your woe I Above all, may you have recourse to God, and to ine 
consolations of his grace ? He alone can speak ' peace to your souls' — He 
alone can be the stay and support of your lives. 

With every sentiment, becoming the occasion, I remain 

your sincere friend, 

James F. Hull. * 

William Sampson, Esq, 

FROM THE LOUISIANA ADVERTISER, SEP. 7, 1820. 

John Philpot Curran Sampson, Esq. Counsellor at Law, died in this 
City of the prevailing fever, after an illness of four days, on the 25th q( 
August, in the twenty-sixth year of his age. He was a native of Ireland, 
and the only son of William Sampson, Esq. of New-York. 

He came to reside in Louisiana at the close of the year 1818, and was ad» 
mitted to the bar the 3d of March following, on the usual public examina" 
tion before the Supreme Court. An advantageous professional connexion 
with M. Moreau Lislet, an eminent lawyer in full practice, was soon after- 



PREFACE. XXXi 

wards obtained for him, by the writer of this notice. He did not however 
avail himself of this p-irtnership — some urgent circumstances having at that 
time induced him to go to Europe. He returned here last winter, in the 
course of which, the Attorney General of the state, Mr. Robertson, appoint- 
ed him his deputy. In that capacity he served for a few months, distin- 
guishing himself in his prosecutions, not only by considerable legal knowl- 
edge, and a clear, fluent and nervous eloquence, but by that dignified 
moderation which in the performance of those painful duties, justice and hu- 
manity alike prescribe. He enjoyed a great advantage here in the practice 
of the law : he was one of the few persons in this, or perhaps any other 
country, who could speak both the English and French languages with great 
facility, and perfectly well. 

About the month of April last a proposal was made to him to establish 
and become the Editor of a newspaper. The situation, he was given to 
understand, would be incompatible with that which he held under the At- 
torney General, and indeed with that of a practising lawyer. On this oc- 
casion he consulted the present writer, and some of his other friends, who 
earnestly endeavoured to dissuade him from accepting the offer. They re- 
presented to him that his office of public prosecutor would give him frequent 
opportunities of bringing his talent for public speaking into notice, and that 
diligent study and close attention to business would then ensure his complete 
professional success, which in due time would lead him to an independent 
fortune : — that this great requisite for the happiness as well as extensive 
usefulness in society, was an advantage which the newspaper establish- 
ment would most probably never afford, and for which the highest fame 
attainable by newspaper writing in Louisiana would be but a poor compen- 
sation. 

He deliberated for a short time : but he felt an invincible desire to be 
engaged as a public writer on political affairs, and was fascinated by the 
persuasion of the commanding and beneficial influence which might be exer- 
cised over the community by means of a well-conducted daily paper. Before 
such incentives all prudential considerations soon disappeared. Accord- 
ingly, resigning his office, and relinquishing his practice at the bar, he under- 
took to conduct the Louisiana Advertiser, as the new journal was to be 
named. The result of his experiment in this business has shown how well 
be understood his own talents. If he had lived, he might have almost re- 
alized his own ideas of the extraordinary moral and political power of the 
periodical press. His editorial labours, including several hundred columns 
of original composition, have been scarcely four months before the public, 
and they have procured for their author as great a share of reputation, 
among those for whom they were more particularly intended, as any writer 
perhaps has ever acquired by the same species of literature in so short a pe- 
riod. He became at once an object of general esteem and interest through- 
out the state, and his loss is already lamented as a public calamity. 
^ On examining his writings with attention, we shall not be surprised at this 
feeling in his favour : for they display a zealous American patriotism, with 
an ardent attachment to the cause of freedom in all nations ; and they prove 
the author to have possessed a great mass of general knowledge with an en- 
ergy of genius sufficient to direct and mould it at will. The subjects he 
chose for discussion were always of the higher orders except when local 
politics stood in his way, and compelled him to stoop. At all other times, 
ne investigated our admirable institutions, not in the interest of individuals 
or of parties, but in the proud spirit of republican philosophy. His specu- 
lations have about them all the fresh, delightful glow of early hope, and of 
enthusiasm unchecked by doubt, undamped by experience. His principles, 
in the abstract, were enlarged, liberal and generous, and were often pushed 
to their utmost extent, without attending to exceptions or modifications. He 
was from personal affection, as well as on the soundest maxims of a just and 



XXxii PREFACE. 

liberal policy, a warm advocate of the rights of oOr fellow-citizens of the 
French race. In his disquisitions on the governments of Europe, we meet 
with many remarks which show that he had studied those systems profound- 
ly. He could be gay, humorous, and satirical, or serious, indignant, and 
often sublime. But his appeals to the understanding and the passions were 
much finer than his pleasantries. 

The style of his writing was as excellent as the matter. It was perspic- 
uous, forcible, and flowing, sometimes to exuberance. In this respect a 
?rreat improvement was manifest in his productions, as he proceeded. The 
atest are by far the best. Yet he can never be reproached with mere ver- 
biage, or with having recourse to the artifices of mechanical rhetoricians. 
The fabric of his compensation had every where a solid foundation of 
thought for its support. Nor was he the imitator of any writer. Whenever 
he attempted to soar, it was upon his own wings ; and this circumstance is 
a characteristic of genius, in one who, like him, was perfectly familiar with 
the works of Burke, Johnson, Gibbon, Grattan and Curran. 

To justify these opinions, I would refer to his disquisitions on the improve- 
ment of our internal navigation; on the use of heraldic bearings and em- 
blems in the United States ; on the abuse of this country by foreign writers ; 
on the pretended plans for dissolving the confederacy ; on the resolution of 
our city council for erecting a triumphal monument to General Jackson. 
The noble article on that memorable act of public gratitude, was the last 
of its authors works. It was composed on the day before he was taken 
with the yellow fever. When the proof sheet was brought to him for cor- 
rection, he was unable to read it. The outline of the character of the il- 
lustrious defender of New-Orleans, which is hastily sketched in the piece 
published under those unfavourable circumstances, might do honour to the 
pencil of an historian. 

In forming our judgment of the author from these productions, we should 
never lose sight of the manner in which they were written. These ar- 
ticles — some of them long enough for pamphlets— -were all composed on the 
spur of the occasion, with no time to copy, and but very little to correct 
them. They were written too by a very young man, of a northern constitu- 
tion, at a season of the year when ordinary exertion of that kind is painful 
even to those accustomed, from their infancy, to our exhausting climate. 
The author himself regarded them only as the prolusions of his pen ; or as 
he used to say, familiarly, tjbe skirmishing of his advanced posts preparato- 
ry to the opening of his winter campaign. 

Considering all those circumstances, it will not, we trust, be deemed an 
exaggeration of friendship to say, that if Mr. Sampson had lived to the or- 
dinary age, and continued his literary pursuits, with diligence and care, he 
would have attained a high rank among the most distinguished writers of 
the English language. 

He published, some years ago, a discourse delivered by him on the anni- 
Tersary of our independence, at the law academy of Litchfield. This work, 
tho' superior to a great many others of the same kind, is so far excelled by 
his later productions, that we may pass it by. 

In his person, Mr. Sampson was of the middle stature. His countenance 
denoted intellectual power. In society, he was distinguished by the gayety 
and urbanity of his manners ; and he delighted in conversation, especially 
on literary and political topics. His habits were temperate, and his reli- 
gious opmions were those of an enlightened christian. By his death this 
city has lost an ornament, our state one of its best citizens, and the cause of 
freedom a powerful advocate. 

J. W. 



LIFE 

OF 

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 



CHAPTER I. 

Mr. Curran's origin—His parents— Early education—Originally intended 
for the church— Enters Trinity College— His ardour for the classics- 
Letter to Mr. Stack — Anecdote of his mother— Her epitaph— While in 
college fixes on the bar— Anecdote connected with the change of profes- 
sion— His character in college— Addicted to metaphysics— Anecdote on 
the subject — Verses to Apjohn. 

John Philpot Curran was born on the 24th day of July, 1750, 
at Newmarket, an obscure town of the county of Cork, in Ireland, 
In several accounts that have been published of his origin and 
advancement, it has by a general consent been asserted that the 
one was very low and the other unassisted ; — that he was the sole 
architect of his own fortune, and the sole collector of the materials 
which were to raise it : and lovers of the marvellous implicitly 
believed and repeated the assertion. Let not, however, the ad- 
mirers of what is rare be offended at being told, that, no matter 
how much praise may be due to his personal merit (and th^ allow- 
ance unquestionably should not be scanty) a portion must still bf; 
given to the institutions of his country, and to those relatives and 
friends whose industry and protection placed him in a condition of 
sharing their advantages. It is of far more importance to the intel- 
lectual interests of men to diffuse a rational confidence in th^ efil- 

3 



|g, LIFE OF CURRAN. 

cacy of instruction, than idly to excite their wonder, and perhaps 
their despair, by insinuating that there are persons who by nature 
are above it. It is not by hearing that the subject of the following 
pages was a heaven-taught unaided genius that others can be 
encouraged to emulate his mental excellencies, but by learning the 
Teal, and to him no less creditable fact, how he studied and strug- 
gled — what models he selected — what deticiencies he corrected — 
by what steps he ascended : to tell this is the duty of his biogra- 
pher, and not to amaze his readers by uninstructive panegyric. 

The lowness* of his origin has been much exaggerated. His 
father, James Curran, who has been represented as an unlettered 
peasant, was seneschal of a manor-court at Newmarket. It is con- 
fidently asserted, by those who knew him, that he possessed a 
mind and acquirements above his station ; that he was familiar 
with the Greek and Roman classics, which he often cited in con- 
versation ; that he delighted in disputation, and excelled in it ; and, 
among his other favourite subjects of discussion, it is still remem- 
bered, that, after his son's return from college, the old man was fre- 
quently to be found in ardent contention with him upon the meta- 
physical doctrines of Locke. 

His mother, whose maiden name was Philpot, belonged to a fami- 
ly well known and respected, and of which the descendants continue 
in the class of gentry. She was a woman of a strong original under- 
standing, and of admitted superiority, in the circles where she 
moved. In her latter years, the celebrity of her son rendered her 
an object of additional attention and scrutiny, and the favourers of 
the opinion that talent is hereditary, thought they could discover, in 

* When Mr. Curran bad risen to eminence, many tables of his pedigree 
were sent him, all of them varying, and the most of them, he conceived, 
too flattering to be authentic. Among his papers is the latest of these, ten-f 
dered to him while he was Master of the Rolls, and made out by a resident 
of liis native place. In the paternal line it ascends no higher than his 
grandfather, who is stated to have been " a north-countryman, of the county 
Deny, from which, having met with disappointments, he came and settled 
in the county Cork :" it adds, that " his only son, Mr. Curran's father, was 
educated at a school in Newmarket, then kept by the Rev. Mr. Dallis, and 
afterwards by tlie Rev. Mr. Morduck, by whom he was considered the best 
Greek and Latin scholar in their school." In the maternal line, it presents 
a long list of ancestors, among whom are judges, bishops, and noblemen ; 
but Mr- Curran has marked his incredulity or his indifference by indorsing 
. this paper with " Stemmata quid faciunt." Some other pedigrees dcrivea 
}]ii descent from tjie English family of Curwen in Cumberland. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 19 

the bursts of irregular eloquence that escaped her, the first visible 
gushings of the stream, which, expanding as it descended, at length 
attained a force and grandeur that incited the admirer to explore 
its source. This persuasion Mr. Curran himself always fondly 
cherished ; — " The only inheritance," he used to say, " that I could 
boast of from my poor father, was the very scant)'^ one of an unat- 
tractive face and person like his own ; and if the world has ever 
attributed to me something more valuable than face or person, or 
than earthly wealth, it was that another and a dearer parent gave 
her child a portion from the treasure of her mind." He attributed 
much of his subsequent fortune to the early influence of such a 
mother; and to his latest hour would dwell with grateful recollec- 
tion upon the wise counsel, upon the lessons of honourable ambi- 
tion and of sober, masculine piety, which she enforced upon the 
minds of her children. She was not without her reward, she lived 
to see the dearest of them surpassing every presage, and accumu- 
lating public honours upon a name, which she, in her station, had 
adorned by her virtues. 

John Philpot, the eldest of their sons*, having given very early 
indications of an excellent capacity, the Rev. Nathaniel Boyse? 
the resident clergyman at Newmarket, pleased with the boy, and 
moved by regard for his parents, received him into his house, and 
by his own personal tuition initiated him in the rudiments of classi- 
cal learning. This, his first acquired friend and instructor, had 
also the satisfaction of seeing all his care repaid by the rapidity 
with which its object ascended to distinction, and still more by the 
unceasing gratitude with which he ever after remembered the 
patron of his childhood. Many of this gentleman's letters to him, 
written at a subsequent period, remain ; and it is not unpleasing to 
observe in them the striking revolution that a few years had effected 
in the fortunes of his pupil. In some of them the little villager, 
whom he had adopted, is seen exalted into a senator, and is soli- 
cited by his former protector to procure the enactment of a statute 
that might relieve himself and all of the clergy from the vexations 
of the tythe-laws. 

* Mr. Curran had three brothers ^nd a sister, all of whom he survived. 



0Q LIFE OF CURRAN. 

The rapid progress that he made under the instructions of Mr. 
Boyse, and the fond predictions of his parents, determined them to 
give their son, what has been always a prevailing object of parental 
ambition in Ireland, a learned education. It was also their wish, 
which he did not oi)pose at the time, that he should eventually 
enter the church. With this view he was soon transferred to the 
free-school of Middlcton, upon which occasion his generous friend 
insisted upon resigning a particular ecclesiastical emolument (in 
value 10/, a year) for the purpose of partly defraying the expenses 
of his young favourite's studies. He remained at this school until 
he had attained the preparatory knowledge of the Greek and Latin 
languages, which should capacitate him to become a student of 
Trinity College, Dublin. It may not be unworthy of remark, that 
the same seminary had a few years before sent up to the capital the 
late Lord Avonmore, then commencing his career in circumstances 
and with a success so resembling those of his future friend. 

The early history of eminent persons so generally contains some 
presaging tokens of the fortune that awaits them, that something of 
the kind may be expected here, yet Mr. Curran's childhood, if tra- 
dition can be credited, was not marked by much prophetic origi- 
nality. At the first little school in the town of Newmarket to which 
he resorted, previous to his reception into Mr. Boyse's family, he 
used to say that he was noted for his simplicity, and was incessantly 
selected as the dupe and butt of his play-fellows. This, however, 
it would appear that he soon laid aside, for a puppet-show^ having 
arrived in Newmarket, and Punch's prompter being taken suddenly 
ill, he, then a very little boy, volunteered to perform the sick man's 
duty, and seizing the opportunity, mercilessly satirised the reign- 
ing vices of the neighbours. This is almost the only exploit of his 
childhood that has been related. 

He entered Trinity College as a sizer in 1769, being then 19 
years old, an age at which the students of the present day have for 
the most part nearly completed their college course. Here he 
studied the classical writings of antiquity with great ardour and 
ivilh eminent success. Nor did his enthusiastic admiration of thera 
ever after subside. Amidst all the distractions of business and 
ambition, he was all his life returning with fresh delight to their 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 2 J 

jDcrusal ; and in the last journey that he ever took, Horace and 
Virgil were his travelling companions. He obtained a scholarship, 
and that his general scholastic attainments were not inconsiderable, 
may be inferred from his having commenced a course of reading 
for a fellowship; but deterred by the labour, or diverted by acci- 
dent, he soon gave up the project. 

When we reflect upon the lustre of his future career, it becomes 
a matter of natural curiosity to inquire how far his mind now began 
to indicate those qualities, by which it was to be subsequently so 
distinguished ; and upon this interesting subject there happen to be 
preserved some documents, principally a portion of his early cor- 
respondence and hie first poetical attempts, from which a few occa- 
sional extracts shall be offered, for the purpose of giving some idea 
of the writer's juvenile habits and capacity. Whatever may be 
considered to be their intrinsic merit, several of them w^ere at least 
written with considerable care, and may therefore be introduced as 
no unfair specimens of the progress of his intellectual strength. 
To the student of eloquence their defects will not be without in- 
struction, if they inspire him with a reliance upon that labour and 
cultivation, which alone conduct to excellence. 

One of the most intimate friends of Mr. Curran's youth and of 
his riper years was the late Rev. Richard Stack, his cotemporary 
at Trinity College, and since-a fellow of that university. The fol- 
lowing is a formal letter of consolation to that gentleman upon the 
death of a brother. The writer had just completed his 20lh year, 
and appears to have been so pleased with his performance, that.no 
less than three transcripts of it remain in his own handwriting. 

'' Dublin, Augusl 20, 1770. 

" DEAR DICK, 

" I am sorry to find by your letter (which 1 have just now 
received,) that you judge my silence for some time past with so 
much more severity than it deserves. Can my fi iend suspect me of 
being unconcerned at his sorrows? I would have wrote to you on 
hearing from Vincent of this late misfortune, but that I was unwill- 
ing to press a subject upon your thoughts which you should take 
every means of avoiding. To offer consolation to a man of sense, 



gg LIFE OF CURRAN. 

iipon the first stroke of affliction, is perhaps one of the most cru^l 
offices that friendship can be betrayed into. All the fine things 
that can be addressed to the fancy will have but small effect in re- 
moving a distemper fixed in the heart. Time and reflection only 
can cure that; and happy is it for us that in this chequered scene, 
where every thing feels perpetual decay, and seems created only 
for dissolution, our sorrows cannot boast of exemption from the 
common fate. Time, though he sometimes tears up our happiness 
by the roots, yet to make amends for that, kindly holds out a remedy 
for our afflictions ; and though he violently breaks our dearest con- 
nexions, yet he is continually teaching us to be prepared for the 
blow. 'Tis true, nature on these occasions will weep, but, my 
dear Dick, reason and reflection should wipe away these tears. A 
few years may see us numbered with those whom we now regret, oj?' 
will give us cause to congratulate those whose happy lot it was, by 
an early retreat from this scene of misery and disappointment, tb 
escape those troubles which their survivors are reserved to suffer. 
'Tis true, the inattention of youth will leave the great account more 
unsettled than might be wished ; but at this age we have every 
thing to plead for that defect — the violence of passions, w^ant of 
reason to moderate them. Faults no doubt we have, but they are 
the faults of youth, of inexperience ; not a course of wickedness 
riveted by habit, and aggravated by obdurate perseverance, which 
(heaven help us) in a length of years they may become ; but, above 
all, that Being who is pleased to call us so suddenly from hence, 
ha§ mercy and compassion to make allowance for these involuntary 
omissions. But I find I have fallen unawares upon a theme which I 
had no intention to pursue so far, as I was persuaded your own 
good sense would suggest much stronger reasons for your consola- 
tion than I could. J. P. C." 

At the date of this letter, the writer, if he looked forward to fame, 
expected to find it in the pulpit ; but this, and a short religious dis- 
course*, are all that remain of his early compositions, which, from 
the style, would appear to be written with a view to his first desti- 
ilation. Mr. Stack, however, entertained so very high an opinion 

* Vide Appendix. 



LIFE OF CtfRRAN. 

of his talents for the solemn eloquence of the church, that being 
appointed a few years after (1775) to preach before the judges of 
assize at Cork, and being anxious that his matter should be worthy 
of his auditors, he intreated of his young friend, who was then 
upon the spot, and going his first circuit, to compose a sermon for 
the occasion. Mr. Curran complied ; and his production excited 
such general admiration, that his mother, in answer to the con- 
gratulations of the neighbourhood upon so flattering a proof of her 
son's abilities, could not avoid tempering her maternal exultation 
with christian regret, and exclaiming — " Oh, yes, it was very fine ; 
but it breaks my heart to think what a noble preacher was lost to 
the church when John disappointed us all, and insisted on becoming 
a lawyer." All his subsequent success and celebrity at the bar 
could never completely reconcile her to the change ; and in her 
latter years, when her friends, to gratify and console her, used to 
remind her that she had lived to see her favorite child one of the 
judges of the land, she would still reply — " Don't speak to me of 
judges — John was fit for any thing ; and had he but followed our 
advice it might hereafter be written upon my tomb, that I had died 
the mother of a bishop." 

This excellent and pious woman died about the year 1783, at 
the advanced age of eighty. It is not written upon her tomb that 
she died the mother of a bishop or of a judge ; but there is to be 
seen upon it an attestation to her worth from the son who was her 
pride, which, as long as virtue and filial gratitude are preferred to 
the glare of worldly dignities, will be considered as an epitaph no 
less honourable both to the parent and the child.* 

It was during the second year of his college studies that he fixed 
on the profession of the law. In his original intention of taking 

* Her remains lie in the churchyard of Newmarket ; over them is the 
following epitaph written by Mr. Curran ; 

Here lies the body of 
Sarah Curran. 
She was marked by many years, 
IVlany talents, 
Many virtues. 
Few failings, 
No crime. * 

This frail memorial was placed here by a 
Son 
Whom she loved. 



2^ LIFE OF CURRAN. 

orders he had been influenced by the wishes of his friends, and by 
the promise of a small living in the gift of a distant relative, and 
probably still more strongly by a habitual preference for the calling 
to which his early patron belonged ; but his ambition soon overruled 
all these motives, and he selected the bar as more suited to his tem- 
perament and talents. According to his own account it was the 
following incident that suggested the first idea of a change in his 

destination. 

He had committed some breach of the college regulations, for 
which he was sentenced by the censor, Dr. Patrick Duigenan, 
either to pay a fine of five shillings, or translate into Latin a number 
of the Spectator. He found it more convenient to accept the latter 
alternative ; but on the appointed day the exercise was not ready, 
and some unsatisfactory excuse was assigned* Against the second 
ofience a heavier penalty was denounced— he was condemned to 
pronounce a Latin oration in laudem decori from the pulpit in the 
college chapel. He no longer thought of evading his sentence, and 
accordingly prepared the panegyric ; but when he came to recite it, 
he had not proceeded far before it was found to contain a mock 
model of ideal perfection, which the doctor instantly recognised to 
be a glaring satire upon himself. As soon therefore as the young 
orator had concluded, and descended from his station, he was sum- 
moned before the provost and fellows to account for his behaviour. 
Doctor Duigenan was not very popular, and the provost was 
secretly not displeased at any circumstance that could mortify him. 
He therefore merely went through the form of calling upon the 
offender for an explanation, and listening with indulgence to the 
ingenuity with which he attempted to soften down the libel, dis- 
missed, him with a slight reproof. When Mr. Curran returned 
among his companions, they surrounded him to hear the particulars 
of his acquittal. He reported to them all th^t he had said, " and all 
that he had not said but that he might have said ;" and impressed 
them with so high an idea of his legal dexterity, that they declared, 
by common acclamation, that the bar and the bar alone was the 
proper profession for one who possessed the talents of which he 
had that day given such a striking proof. He accepted the omen, 
and never after repented of his decision. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 25 

In college he distinguished himself by his social powers. He 
had such a fund of high spirits and of popular anecdote; his ordi- 
nary conversation was so full of '' wit, and fun, and fire," that in the 
convivial meetings of his fellow-students he was never omitted. 
His general reputation among them was that of being very clever 
and very wild. He often joined in those schemes of extravagant 
frolic so prevalent in that university, and after one of the nocturnal 
broils to which they usually led, was left wounded and insensible 
from loss of blood to pass the remainder of the night on the pave- 
ment of Dublin. 

He was at this time supported partly from the funds appropriated 
to the sizers, and partly by scanty remittances from Newmarket. 
But he was frequently without a shilling ; for he was incorrigibly 
improvident, and would often squander, in entertaining his com- 
panions, what should have been meted out to answer the demands 
of the coming quarter. Yet, whatever his privations were, he bore 
them with singular good humour, and when he had no longer money 
to treat his friends, he never failed to divert them with ludicrous 
representations of his distresses and expedients. 

One of his sayings while he was in college has been preserved, 
and is a favourable instance of the felicitous use that he made of his 
classical knowledge in the production of comical effect. A fellow- 
student in reciting a Latin theme assigned a false quantity to the 
syllable mi in the word nimirum, A buzz of disapprobation suc- 
ceeded, Mr. Curran, to relieve his friend's confusion, observed, 
" that it was by no means surprising that an Irish student should 
be ignorant of what was known by only one man in Rome, accord- 
ing to the following testimony of Horace, 

*' Septimius, Claudi, nimirum intelligit unus." 

He was at this early period remarkable for his disposition to 
subtle disputation and metaphysical inquiries, connected with which 
a circumstance may be mentioned that strikingly illustrates the 
speculative propensities of his young and ardent mind. A frequent 
topic of conversation with one of his companions was the investiga- 
tion of the nature of death and eternity, and the immortality of the 
soul ; but finding that the farther they followed the bewildering light 

4 



2(5 LlllL, OF CURKAN. 

of reason, the more they were " in wandering mazes lost,'' they 
came to the romantic agreement, that whoever of them might first 
receive the summons to another state, should, if permitted, for once 
revisit the survivor, and relieve his doubts by revealing, whatever 
could be revealed to him, of the eternal secret. A very few years 
after, the summons came to Mr. Curran's friend, who, finding his 
end approach, caused a letter to be addressed to his former fellow- 
student, apprising him of the impending event, and of his intention 
to perform his promise (if it should be allowed) on a particular 
night. This letter did not reach its destination till after the expira- 
tion of the appointed hour 5 but it was the first, and the only inti- 
mation, that arrived of the writer's decease. 

Something of the same turn of mind may be observed in a little 
poem that Mr. Curran wrote the year before he left Trinity college. 
One of his cotemporaries there, was a young gentleman named 
Apjohn, with whom he became intimately connected by a commu- 
nity of taste and pursuits, and who claims a passing mention as a 
friend from whose example and encouragement he derived the most 
important advantages at this trying period of his career, when hope 
and ardour were the most precious benefits that a friend could 
bestow. 

During a temporary absence of Apjohn from college, a report 
reached his companions that he had died suddenly at his native 
place, Killaloe. It was soon discovered to have been unfounded, 
upon w^hich occasion, while the others congratulated him in prose, 
his more ambitious friend addressed him in the following verses. 

TO W. APJOHN. 

Peace I whining slut, dismiss those sighs, 
Those epitaphs and elegies ; 
And throwing off those weeds of sorrow, 
Go laughing bid my friend good morrow! 
Go bid him welcome here again, 
From Charon's bark and Pluto's reign ! 

The doleful tale around was spread ; 
'* Ha.st heard the news ? Poor Apjohn's dead !'• — 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 07 

" Impossible!" — *' Indeed it's true — 

He's dead — and so is Casey too — 

In Limerick this, and that at Killaloe. 

As St- Paul says, * we all must die 1' 

" I'm sorry for 't."— *' Faith so 'm I— 

Extremely so — But tell me, pray, 1 

If you were on the ice to-day ? \ 

There was great skating there, they say — " i 

" I couldn't go for want of shoes— 

In truth, I'm sorry for the news — 

And yet I knew, and always said. 

When he had got into his head 

That strange abstemious resolution, 

'T would quite destroy his constitution." 

Thus careless, tearless sorrow spoke, 

And heaved the sigh, or told the joke. 

Yet, must I own, there were a few 

Who gave your memory its due ; 

And while they dropt a friendly tear 

Said things that but you must n't hear. 

And now, methought, a wandering ghost. 
You whizz'd along the Stygian coast ; 
And if, perchance, you gain'd the wherry. 
And tugg'd an oar across the ferry, 
That, sitting on the farther shore, 
You watch'd each boatful wafted o'er, 
While with impatience you attend 
Th' arrival of your quondam friend ; 
To tell his wonder where you've been. 
And what surprising things you've seen ; 
And, from experience wise, relate 
The various politics of fate ; 
And show where hoary sages stray, 
•And where they chance to keep their way ; 
Then laugh to think, how light as air, 
Our blind dogmatic guesses were; 
When, fancy throned and placed on high, 
We sat in judgment o'er the sky. 
There envy too began to rise. 
To think that you were grown so wise ; 
That bursting from this shell of clay. 
You now enjoy 'd eternal day ; 
While I was left perplex'd and blind, 
Ib anxious ignorance behind ; 



28 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

Doom'd this insipid part to play 
In life's dull farce another day, 
That, bent with sorrows and with age, 
I late might totter off the stage : 
But yet my Muse, I cried, will pay 
The tribute of a weeping lay : 
And though the flowers strewn o'er his tomb 
Blay boast, perhaps, a longer bloom, 
The short-liv'd verse he'll still receive, 
Since that is all a Muse can give. 
The Muse, contented, took her place— 
1 solemnly composed my face, 
And took the pen, prepared to write 
What she sat ready to indite, 
When Rumour, lo ! with deafning sound, 
More gladsome tidings blows around, 
And bids her thousand tongues to tell, 
That Apjohn is alive and well ! 
And louder now the torrent grows. 
Gathering new murmurs as it flows. 
When the poor Muse, in sad affright, 
Swift to Parnassus wings her flight ; 
But promised, ere away she fled, 
That when you should indeed be dead, 
She'd call again, and write a verse, 
To please your friend, and grace your hearse 4 
Unless that I myself ere then 
Should grow fatigued, and quit the scene. 
And yet how short a time can live 
Those honours that the Muses give — 
Soon fades the monument away. 
And sculptured marbles soon decay ; 
And every title, now defaced, 
Mix with the dust which once they graced: 
But if we wish a deathless name, 
Let virtue hand us down to fame. 
Qur honours then may time defy. 
Since we will have, whene'er we die, 
For epitaph — a life w^ell spent, 
And mankind for a monument. 
What matter then to you or me. 
Though none upon our grave should see 
A W. A. or J. P. C. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 29 

William Apjohn is a name of which the world has heard nothing. 
He died prematurely, and " without his fame ;" but had his days 
been lengthened, he would probably have acted a distinguished 
part in ihe history of his country. Like his friend, he had chosen 
the bar as the most honourable road to fortune and celebrity, and 
had already given a promise of such talents for public life, that his 
success was looked to as undoubted. Mr. Curran never spoke 
of his capacity but in terms of the most respectful admiration, 
" Apjohn's mind," he used to say, " was, beyond exception, the 
most accomplished that I ever met : his abilities and attainments 
were so many and so rare, that if they could have been distributed 
among a dozen ordinary persons, the share of each would have 
promoted him to the rank of a man of talents." 



30 i-^^^ OF CURRAiX. 



CHAPTER II. 

Mr. Curran leaves College — Enters the Middle Temple— Letter to Mr. 
Weston— Letter to Mr. Keller- His first attempts in Oratory fail— His 
own account of the failure, and of his first success— A regular attendant at 
Debating Clubs -Anecdotes— His Poem on Friendship — Dr. Creagh's 
character of him — Mr. Hudson's predictions and friendship — His early 
manners and habits — Subject to constitutional melancholy — Letters t'rom 
London — His society in London — Anecdote of his interview with Mack- 
lin— His early application and attainments — Favourite authors — Early 
attachment to the Irish peasantry— His marriage— Remarks upon Eng- 
lish law. 

Mr. Curran completed his college studies in the early part of 
the year 1773, having qualitied himself to take a master's degree, 
and passed over to London, where he became a student of law 
in the Society of the Middle Temple. During his residence ia 
England he wrote regularly, and at considerable length, to his 
friends in Ireland. A collection of these letters has been pre- 
served, and as several of them contain a more striking picture of 
his circumstances, and of many traits of individual character, than 
any description by another could convey, he shall in this stage of 
his life be occasionally made his own biographer. 

The following was written immediately after his arrival in the 
British capital. The gentleman to whom it is addressed was a 
resident of Newmarket, and one of the most attached of Mr. Cur- 
ran's early friends. 

*' London, 31 Chandos-street, July 10, 1773. 
" THE REV. HENRY WESTON, 

NEWMARKET, CO. CORK. 

" I would have taken a last farewell of my dear Harry from 
Dublin, if I had not written so shortly before I left it ; and, indeed, 
I was not sorry for being exempt from a task for which a thousand 
causes conspired to make me at that juncture unqualified. It was 
not without regret that I could leave a country, which my birth, 
education, and connexions had rendered dear to me, and venture 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 3j 

alone, almost a child of fortune, into a land of strangers. In such 
moments of despondence, when fancy plays the self-tormentor, she 
commonly acquits herself to a miracle, and will not fail to collect 
in a single group the most hideous forms of anticipated misfortune, 
I considered myself besides as resigning for ever the little in- 
dulgences that youth and inexperience may claim for their errors, 
and passing to a period of life in which the best can scarce escape 
the rigid severity of censure ; nor could the little trivial vanity of 
taking the reins of my own conduct alleviate the pain of so dear- 
bought a transition from dependence to liberty. Full of these re- 
flections as I passed the gate, 1 could not but turn and take a last 
lingering look of poor Alma-mater ; it was the scene of many a 
boyish folly, and of many a happy hour. 1 should have felt more 
confusion at part of the retrospect, had I not been relieved by a 
recollection of the valuable friendship I had formed there. Though 
I am far from thinking such a circumstance can justify a passed 
misconduct, yet I cannot call that time totally a blank, in which one 
has acquired the greatest blessing of humanity. It was with a 
melancholy kind of exultation I counted over the number of those I 
loved there, while my heart gave a sigh to each name in the cata- 
logue ; nay, even the fellows, whom I never loved, I forgave at that 
moment ; the parting tear blotted out every injury, and I gave them 
as hearty a benediction as if they had deserved it : as for my 
general acquaintance (for I could not but go the round,) I packed 
their respective little sighs into one great sigh, as I turned round 
on my heel. My old friend and handmaid Betty, perceiving me in 
motion, got her hip under the strong-box with my seven shirts, 
which she had rested against the rails during the delay, and 
screwed up her face into a most rueful caricature, that might pro- 
voke a laugh at another time ; while her young son Denny, grasp- 
ing his waistband in one hand, and a basket of sea provision in the 
other, took the lead in the procession, and so we journeyed on to 
George's Quay, where the ship was just ready to sail. When I 
entered, I found my fellow-passengers seated round a large table 
in the cabin ; we were fourteen in number. A young highland 
lord had taken the head of the table and the conversation, and with 
a modesty peculiar to himself, gave a history of his travels, and his 



CIO LIFE OF CURRAN. 



intimate connexions with the princes of the empire. An old de- 
bauched officer was complaining of the gout, while a woman, who 
sat next to him, (good heaven ! what a tongue,) gave a long detail 
of what her father suffered from that disorder. To do them all 
justice, they exerted themselves most zealously for the common 
entertainment. As for my part, I had nothing to say ; nor if I had, 
was any one at leisure to listen to me ; so I took possession of what 
the captain called a bed, wondering, with Partridge, ' how they 
could play so many different tunes at the same time without putting 
each other out.' I was expecting that the sea-sickness would soon 
give those restless mouths different employment, but in that I was 
disappointed ; the sea was so calm that one only was sick during 
the passage, and it was not my good fortune that the lot should fall 
on that devil who never ceased chattering. There was no cure but 
patience ; accordingly, I never stirred from my tabernacle (unless 
to visit my basket) till we arrived at Parkgate. Here, after the 
usual pillage at the customhouse, I laid^my box down on the beach, 
seated myself upon it, and, casting my eyes westward over the 
Welsh mountains towards Ireland, I began to reflect on the impos- 
sibility of getting back without the precarious assistance of others. 
Poor Jack ! thought I, thou wert never till now so far from home 
but thou mightest return on thine own legs. Here now must thou 
remain, for where here canst thou expect the assistance ^of a friend ? 
Whimsical as the idea was, it had power to affect me ; until, at 
length, I was awaked from this reverie by a figure which approach- 
ed me with the utmost affability ; methought his looks seemed to 
say, ' why is thy spirit troubled? He pressed me to go into his 
house, and to ' eat of his bread,' and to ' drink of his drink.' There 
was so much good-natured solicitude in the invitation, 'Xwas irre- 
sistible. I arose, therefore, and followed him, ashamed of my un- 
charitable despondence. Surely, thought I, ' there is still humanity 
left amongst us,' as I raised my eyes to the golden letters over his 
door, that offered entertainment and repose to the wearied traveller. 
Here I resolved to stay for the night, and agreed for a place in his 
coach next morning to Chester, but finding my loquacious fellow 
passenger had agreed for one in the same vehicle, I retracted my 
bargain, and agreed for my box only. I perceived, hov^^ever, when 



LIFE OF CURRAN, 33 

I arose next morning, that my box was not sent, though the coach 
was gone. I was thinking how I should remedy this unlucky dis- 
appointment, when my friendly host told me that he could furnish 
me with a chaise ! Confusion light upon him ! what a stroke was 
this ! It was not the few paltry shillings that vexed me, but to have 
my philanthropy, till that moment running cheerily through my 
veins, and to have the current turned back suddenly by the detec- 
tion of his knavery ! Verily, Yorick. even thy gentle spirit, so 
meekly accustomed to bear and forbear, would have been roused 
on such an occasion. I paid hastily for my entertainment, and 
shaking the dust from my feet at his gate, I marched with my box 
on my shoulder to a waggoner's at the other end of the town, where 
I entered it for London, and sallied forth toward Chester on foot. 
I was so nettled at being the dupe of my own credulity, that I was 
almost tempted to pass an excommunication on all mankind, and 
resolved never more to trust my own skill in physiognomy. Wrapt 
up in my speculations, I never perceived at what a rate I was strid- 
ing away, till I found myself in the suburbs of Chester, quite out of 
breath, and completely covered with dust and dirt. From Chester 
I set out that evening in the stage : I slept about four hours next 
day at Coventry, and the following evening, at five o'clock, was ia 
view of near a hundred and twenty spires, that are scattered from 
one side of the horizon to the other, and seem almost bewildered in 
the mist that perpetually covers this prodigious capital. 'Twould 
be impossible for description to give any idea of the various objects 
that fill a stranger, on his first arrival, with surprise and astonish- 
ment. The magnificence of the churches, hospitals, and other 
public buildings, which every where present themselves, would 
alone be ample subject of admiration to a spectator, though he 
were not distracted by the gaudy display of wealth and dissipation 
continually shifting before his eyes in the most extravagant forms 
of pride and ostentation, or by a hurry of business that might m.ake 
you think this the source from which life and motion are conveyed 
to the world beside. There are many places here not unworthy of 
particular inspection, but as my illness prevented me from seeing 
them on my first arrival, I shall suspend my curiosity till some 
future time, as I am determined to apply to reading this vacation 



g^ LIFE OF CUKRAN. 

with the utmost diligence, in order to attend the courts next winter 
with more advantage. If 1 should happen to visit Ireland next 
summer, I shall spend a week before 1 go in seeing the curiosities 
here (the king and queen, and the lions) ; and, if I continue in my 
present mood, you will see a strange alteration in your poor friend. 
That cursed fever brought me down so much, and my spirits are so 
reduced, that, faith, I don't remember to have laughed these six 
weeks. Indeed, I never thought solitude could lean so heavily on 
me as I find it does: I rise, most commonly, in the morning between 
five and six, and read as much as my eyes will permit me till din- 
ner-time ; I then go out and dine, and from that till bed-time I 
mope about between my lodgings and the Park. For heaven's 
sake send me some news or other (for, surely, Newmarket cannot 
be barren in such things) that will teach me once more to laugh. I 
never received a single line from any one since I came here ! Tell 
me if you know any thing about Keller: I wrote twice to that gen- 
tleman without being favoured with any answer. You will give my 
best respects to Mrs. Aldworth and her family ; to Doctor Creaghs ; 
and don't forget my good friends Peter and Will ConneU 

" Yours sincerely, 

" J. P. C. 

" P. S. I will cover this blank edge with intreating you to write 
closer than you commonly do when you sit down to answer this, 
and don't make me pay tenpence for a halfpenny- worth of white 
paper." 

" In a letter of nearly the same date to another friend,* he says, 
" By the time you receive this I shall have relapsed into the same 
monastic life that I led before. I do not expect, however, that it 
will lean so heavily on me, as I am now tolerably recovered, and 
shall continue to read with unabated application ; indeed, that is 
the only means of making solitude supportable ; yet, it must be 
owned, a man of a speculative turn will find ample matter in that 
way without stirring from his window. It is here that every vice 
and folly climb to their meridian, and that mortality seems properly 

* Jeremiah Keller, Esq. a member of the Irish bar. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 35 

to understand her business. If you cast your eyes on the thousand 
gilded chariots that are dancing the hayes in an eternal round of 
foppery, you would think the world assembled to play the fool in 
London, unless you believe the report of the passing-bells and 
hearses, which would seem to intimate that they all made a point 
of dying here. It is amazing, that even custom should make death 
a matter of so much unconcern as you will here find it. Even in 
the house where I lodge, there has been a being dead these two 
days. I did not hear a word of it till this evening, though he is 
divided from me only by a partition. They visit him once a day, 
and so lock him up till the next (for they seldom bury till the 
seventh day) and there he lies without the smallest attention paid 
to him, except a dirge each night on the Jew's-harp, which I shall 
not omit while he continues to be my neighbour." 

It was during his attendance at the Temple that Mr. Curran 
made the first trial of his rhetorical powers. He frequented a de- 
bating society that was composed of his fellow-students. His first 
attempt was unsuccessful, and for the moment quite disheartened 
him. He had had from his boyhood a considerable precipitation 
and confusion of utterance, from which he was denominated by his 
school-fellows " stuttering Jack Curran." This defect he had 
laboured to remove, but the cure was not yet complete. From the 
agitation of a first effort he was unable to pronounce a syllable; 
and so little promise did there appear of his shining as a speaker, 
that his friend Apjohn said to him, " I have a high opinion of your 
capacity ; confine yourself to the study of law, and you will to a 
certainty become an eminent chamber-counsel, but, depend upon it, 
nature never intended you for an orator." Fortunately for his fame, 
this advice was disregarded : he continued to attend the above and 
other debating clubs, at one of which, during a discussion, some 
personal and irritating expressions having been levelled at him, his 
indignation, and along with it his talent, was roused. Forgetting 
all his timidity and hesitation, he rose against his assailant, and, for 
the first time, revealed to his hearers and to himself that style of 
original and impetuous oratory, which he afterwards improved into 
such perfection, and which now bids fair to preserve his name. Hp 
used often to entertain his friends by detailing this event of his 



36 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

mind's having " burst the shell." The following was the manner 
in which he once related it j for one of the great charms of his coU 
loquial powers was the novelty that he could give to the same facts 
upon every repetition : he adorned a favourite anecdote, as a skilful 
musician would a favourite air, by an endless variety of unpremedi- 
tated ad libitum graces. 

One day after dinner, an acquaintance, in speaking of his 
eloquence, happened to observe that it must have been born with 
him. " Indeed, my dear sir,'' replied Mr. Curran, " it was not ; it 
was born three and twenty years and some months after me ; and, 
if you are satisfied to listen to a dull historian, you shall have the 
history of its nativity. 

" When I was at the Temple, a few of us formed a little debating 
club — poor Apjohn, and Duhigg,* and the rest of them! they have 
all disappeared from the stage ; but my own busy hour will soon 
be fretted through, and then ^ve may meet again behind the scenes. 
Poor fellows ! they are now at rest ; but I still can see them, and 
the glow of honest bustle on their looks, as they arranged their 
little plan of honourable association (or, as Pope would say, * gave 
•their little senate laws,') where all the great questions in ethics and 
politics (there were no gagging-bills in those days) were to be dis- 
cussed and irrevocably settled. Upon the first night of our assem- 
bling, I attended, my foolish heart throbbing with the anticipated 
honour of being styled ' the learned member that opened the 
debate,' or ' the very eloquent gentleman who has just sat down.' 
All day the comiiig scene had been flitting before my fancy, and 
cajoling it; my ear already caught the glorious melody of hear 
him, hear him !' Already I was practising how to steal a cunning 
side-long glance at the tear of generous approbation bubbling in 
the eyes of ray little auditory ; never suspecting, alas ! that a modern 
eye may have so little affinity with moisture that the finest gunpow- 
der may be dried upon it. I stood up — the question was Catholic 
claims or the slave trade, I protest I now forget which, but the dif- 
ference, you know, was never very obvious — my mind was stored 
with about a' folio volume of matter, but I wanted a preface, and for 

* The late B. T. Duhigg, Esq. of the Irish bar. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 37 

want of a preface the volume was never published. I stood up, 
trembling through every fibres but remembering that in this I was 
but imitating Tully, I took courage, and had actually proceeded 
almost as far as ' Mr. Chairman,' when to my astonishment and 
terror, I perceived that every eye was riveted upon me. There 
were only six or seven present, and the little room could not have 
contained as many more ; yet was it, to my panic-struck imagina- 
tion, as if I were the central object in nature, and assembled millions 
were gazing upon me in breathless expectation. I became dis- 
mayed and dumb ; my friends cried ' hear him !' but there was 
nothing to hear. My lips, indeed, went through the pantomime of 
articulation, but I was like the unfortunate fiddler at the fair, who 
upon coming to strike up the solo that was to ravish every ear, 
discovered that an enemy had maliciously soaped his bow ; or 
rather like poor Punch as I once saw him, (and how many like 
him have I seen in our old house of commons ! but it is dead, and 
let us not disturb its ashes) grimacing a soliloquy, of which his 
prompter behind had most indiscreetly neglected to administer the 
words. So you see, sir, it was not born with me. However, though 
my friends, even Apjohn, the most sanguine of them, despaired of 
me, the cacotthes loquendi was not to be subdued without a struggle. 
I was for the present silenced, but I still attended our meetings with 
the most laudable regularity, and even ventured to accompany the 
others to a more ambitious theatre, ' the Devils of Temple Bar ;' 
where truly may I say, that many a time the Devil's own work was 
going forward. Here, warned by fatal experience that a man's 
powers may- be overstrained, I at first confined myself to a simple 
' ay or no,' and, by dint of practice and encouragement, brought 
my tongue to recite these magical elements of parliamentary 
eloquence with ' such sound emphasis and good discretion,' that in 
a fortnight's time I had completed my education for the Irish senate. 
" Such was my state, the popular throb just beginning to revisit 
my heart, when a long expected remittance arrived from New- 
market; Apjohn dined with me that day, and when the leg of mut- 
ton, or rather the bone, was removed, we offered up the libation of 
an additional glass of punch for the health and length of days (and 
heaven heard the prayer) of the kind mother that had remembered 



33 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

the necessities of her absent child. In the evening we repaired to 
' the Devils.' One of them was upon his legs ; a fellow of whom 
it was impossible to decide, whetLier he was most distinguished by 
the filth of his person or by the flippancy of his tongue ; just such 
another as Harry Flood would have called ' the highly gifted gen- 
tleman with the dirty cravat and greasy pantaloons.'* I found this m, 
learned personage in the act of calumniating chronology by the m 
most preposterous anachronisms, and (as I believe I shortly after " 
told him) traducing the illustrious dead by affecting a confidential 
intercourse with them, as he would with some nobleman, his ver^ 
dear friend, behind his back, who, if present, would indignantly 
repel the imputation of so insulting an intimacy. He descanted 
upon Demosthenius, the glory of the Roman forum ; spoke of Tully 
as the famous cotemporary and rival of Cicero ; and in the short 
space of one half hour, transported the straits of Marathon three 
several times to the plains of Thermopylae. Thinking that I had a 
right to know something of these matters, I looked at him with sur- 
prise ; and whether it was the money in my pocket, or my classical 
chivalry, or most probably the supplemental tumbler of punch, that 
gave my face a smirk of saucy confidence, when our eyes met there 
was something like wager of battle in mine ; upon which the erudite 
gentleman instantly changed his invective against antiquity into an 
invective against me, and concluded by a few words of friendly 
counsel (Jiorresco referens) to ' orator mum,' who he doubted not 
possessed wonderful talents for eloquence, although he would 
recommend him to shew it in future by some more popular method 
than his silence. I followed his advice, and I believe not entirely 
without effect ; for when upon sitting down, I whispered my friend, 
that I hoped he did not think my dirty antagonist had come ' quite 
clean off?' ' On the contrary, my dear fellow,' said he, ' every 
one around me is declaring that it is the first time they ever saw him 
so well dressed.' So, sir, you see that to try the bird, the spur 
must touch his blood. Yet, after all, if it had not been for the in- 

* Mr. Curran here alluded to the celebrated Mr. Flood's custom of dis- 
tinguishing th«i speakers at the London debating societies by such ludicrous 
descriptions of their dress, as " the eloquent friend to reform in the thread- 
bare coat," " the able supporter of the present ministry with the new pair 
of boots," &c. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 39 

spiration of the punch, 1 might have continued a mute to this hour ; 
so for the honour of the art, let us have another glass." 

The speech which Mr. Curran made upon this occasion was im- 
mediately followed by a more substantial reward than the applauses 
of his hearers ; the debate was no sooner closed than the president 
of the society despatched his secretary to the eloquent stranger, to 
solicit the honour of his company to partake of a cold collation; 
which proved to consist of bread and cheese and porter ; but the 
public motives of the invitation rendered it to the guest the most 
delicious supper that he had ever tasted. 

From this time till his final departure from London, he was a 
regular attendant and speaker at debating clubs ; an exercise which 
he always strongly recommended to every student of eloquence, 
and to which he attributed much of his own skill and facility in ex- 
temporaneous debate. He never adopted or approved of the prac- 
tice of committing to memory intended speeches, but he was in the 
habit of assisting his mind with ample notes of the leading topics, 
and trusted to the occasion for expression. 

The society that he latterly most frequented was the well-known 
Robin Hood. He also sometimes attended a meeting for the dis- 
cussion of religious questions, which was held on Sunday evenings, 
at the Brown Bear in the Strand, and resorted to by persons of every 
persuasion, and by many who were " honorary members of all 
faiths." Whenever the claims of the Roman Catholics were the 
subject of debate^ he uniformly supported them. From his zeal in 
their cause, and from his dress, (a brown surtout over black) he 
was supposed by strangers to be a young priest of that order, and 
was known in the club by the name of " the little Jesuit from St. 
Omers."* 

* The same zeal for the emancipation of the Roman Catholics which dis- 
tinguished him for the rest of his life, produced similar mistakes among 
strangers upon the subject of his religion. When he was at Paris in 1814, 
he accompanied some friends to see Cardinal Fesch's gallery of paintings. 
The Frenchman in attendance there was a good deal struck by Mr. Curran's 
©bservations, and upon the latter's retiring before the others, asked with 
some curiosity who he was. As soon as he heard his name, " Ah ! (said 
he, with great surprise) je voyois bien qu'il avoit beaucoup d'esprit, maisj 
men Dieu ! je n'aurois jamais soupconne que ce petit monsieur fut h grand 
Catholique Irlandois.'^ 



40 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

Among Mr. Curran's juvenile productions was a poem of some 
length, written whilst he was at the Temple ; it is entitled, " On 
Friendship," and addressed to Mr. Weston of Newmarket. When 
we consider the character of Mr. Curran's oratory, to which an 
excess of fervor and imagination has been by some imputed as its 
imperfection, we should naturally expect to see those qualities pre- 
dominating when he found himself engaged in subjects to which 
they so peculiarly belong; but this is not the case. From his youth 
to his old age he was fond of writing poetry, and produced a con- 
siderable quantity; but in little of it do we meet with that sustained 
ardour, with those fearless conceptions, and that diction teeming 
with imagery, which distinguish his other productions. When he 
occupied himself with poetry, he appears to have considered it 
rather as a recreation to soothe himself, than as a means of exciting 
others. With the exception of a very few instances, (which how- 
ever prove his poetic capacity, had he anxiously cultivated it) his 
verses are in general placid, familiar, and unaspiring, seldom ven- 
turing beyond expressions of established form, and for the most 
part contented with those sentiments of obvious tenderness to whicli 
no mind of any sensibility is a stranger. The opening of the poem 
on Friendship is here inserted, for the sake of the concluding image, 
which the late Mr. Fox, (among others) particularly admired. 

Here, on these banks, where many a bard has sung, 
While Thames in listening silence flow'd along, 
Where friendship's flame inspir'd the glowing verse, 
To hail the;, triumph, or to mourn the hearse ; 
On the same spot where weeping Thomson paid 
The last sad tribute to his Talbot's shade, 
A humbler muse, by fond remembrance led. 
Bewails the ab/sent, where he mourn'd the dead. 
Nor differ much the subjects of the strain, 
Whether of death or distance we complain ; 
Whether we're sunder'd by the final scene, 
Or envious seas disjoining roll between ; 
Absence, the dire effect, is still the same, 
And death and distance differ but in name : 
Yet sure they're different, if the peaceful grave 
From haunting thoughts the low-laid tenant sav^, 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 41 

While in this breathing death reflection lives, 

And o'er the wreck of happiness survives. 

Alas ! my friend, were Providence inclined 

(In unrelenting wrath to human kind) 

To take back every blessing that she gave, 

From the wide ruin, she would memory save, 

Else would severest ills be soon o'erpast, 

Or kind oblivion bury them at last : 

But Memory, with more than Egypt's art, 

Embalming every grief that wounds the heart, 

Sits at the altar she hath rais'd to Wo, 

And feeds the source Whence tears for ever flow. 

In the course of this poem allusions are made to the writer's 
future career in public life ; and those who have not yet learned 
to sneer at the mention of political integrity, will be gratified to 
observe how completely, in the present instance, the visions of the 
poet were realized by the subsequent conduct of the man. 

But in his country's cause, if patriot zeal 

Excite him, ardent for the public weal, 

With generous warmth to stem corruption's rage, 

And prop the fall of an abandoned age, 

Bold in the senate he confronts the band 

Of willing slaves that sell their native land ; 

And, when the mitred hireling would persuade 

That chains for man by Heaven's high will were made. 

Or hoary jurist, in perversion wise, 

Would sap the laws, and on their ruin rise, 

While the mute 'squire and star-enamour'd beau 

Are base in all they can— an *' ay" or " no !" 

With equal scorn he views the venal train, 

And sorded bribe that such a tribe can gain. 

And a little farther on ; 

But if oppression lord it o'er the land, 
And force alone can lawless force withstand, i 

Fearless he follows where his country calls, ) 

And lives with freedom, or with glory fallis ; \ 

He gives that shackle he disdains to wear, • 

For endless fame, nor thinks the purchase dear. 
6 



42 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

This may not be very good poetry, but it evinces, what is more 
honourable to the writer, and what was in those days of more value 
to Ireland than good poetry, an indignant sense of her condition, 
and an impatience to redress it. It will hereafter appear how far 
he fulfilled the engagements of his youth. 

From the above and similar productions,* and from the indica- 
tions of talent that his ordinary conversation afforded, great hopes 
were now entertained of him. According to all the accounts of 
those who knew him at this time, his colloquial powers were even 
then of a very high order. Having no hereditary fortune or power- 
ful connexions on which to depend, and having embraced an am- 
bitious and hazardous profession, where, without the reputation of 
superior ability, there was little prospect of success; he appears 
to have habitually exerted himself upon every occasion to substan- 
tiate his claims, and justify his choice. The following judgment 
"was passed upon him at this period by his future father-in-law. Dr. 
Richard Creagh, of Newmarket, a scholar and a man of cultivated 
taste, whose prediction, in the present instance, has been so com- 
pletely verified. After mentioning, in one of his letters, the future 
ornament of the Irish bar, as *' a young man of this town, one Jack 
Curran," he proceeds, " take his character from me. He possesses 
a good understanding ; is an excellent scholar ; has some taste, and, 
for his years, I think, a tolerable judgment; has uncommon abilities; 
is a proficient in music ; has received an university education; is 
now preparing for the bar, for which profession he possesses extra- 
ordinary talents, and will disappoint all his friends if he does not 
distinguish himself there. As far as I can observe, he seems to be 
extremely cheerful and good-natured, and is remarkably pleasant 
in conversation."! 

* During the two years that preceded his admission to the bar, he wrote, 
besides the poem on Friendship, " Lines upon visiting the Cave of Pope," 
and Lines upon the poisoning a stream at Frenchay, -where he had been 
driven by foul winds in one of his passages from England to Ireland,; which 
he composed for the purpose of expressing his gratitude to a family of«that 
place, who had given him a ver}'^ hospitable reception. 

t Doctor Creagh Was a physician, and a member of the very respectable 
family of that name in the county of Cork. Much of the earlier part of his 
life had been passed on the continent, where he had mixed in the society of 
the most celebrated men of talent ; but he used often to declare, that, 
neither abroad nor at home, had he ever met so delightful a companion as 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 43 

In a letter of about the same date, from one of Mr. Curran's 
earliest friends, Mr. Hudson,* we find similar expectations prevail ; 
alluding to the melancholy that ran through a letter he had just 
received from the other, he says, — " Consider now and then, Jack, 
what you are destined for; and never, even in your distresses, 
draw consolation from so mean a thought, as that your abilities 
may one day render your circumstances easy or affluent; but that 
you may one day have it in your power to do justice to the wronged, 
to wipe the tear from the widow or orphan, will afford the satisfac- 
tion that is worthy of a man." 

It would be injustice to suppress another passage. Having a 
little before chided his friend for neglecting to inform him of the 
state of his finances, Mr. Hudson goes on, " I think I shall be a man 
of no small fame to-morrow or next day, and though 'tis but the 
fame of a dentist, yet if that of an honest man is added to it, I shall 
not be unhappy. Write speedily to me, and if you are in want, 
think I shall be not satisfied with my fortunes — believe me I shall 
never think I make a better use of my possessions than when such a 
friend as Jack can assist me in their uses." The amiable and res- 
pectable writer of the above still lives, and if the union of the two 
characters, to which in his youth he aspired, could confer happi- 
ness, he has been completely happy. 

Many other proofs might be added (were it necessary) to show 
that Mr. Curran was, even at this period, considered as much more 
than an ordinary man ; that he had already obtained a very high de- 
gree of estimation in the opinions of every person of discernment 

*' young Jack Curran ;" yet, the conversation of the latter was not, at (his 
time, what it subsequently became. It was full of vivacity and of anec- 
dotes, to which he could give an extraordinary degree of dramatic effect ; 
but it had not, as at a later period, those incessant and magical transitions 
from the most comic trains of thought to the deepest pathos, which were 
for ever bringing a tear into the eye, before the smile was off the lip ; nor 
that surprising control overall the mysteries of language, which he acquired 
by his subsequent habits of extemporaneous speaking. 

Dr. Creagh was a determined Whig, and had, no doubt, an influence in 
confirming the political inclinations of his son-in-law. it was also from Dr. 
Creagh, who had spent several years in France, and was an excellent 
French scholar, that Mr. Curran derived much of his early taste for the 
language and literature of that country. 

* Mr. Edward Hudson, for a long* course of year? the most eminent 
dentist in Ireland. ' 



44 l-tFE OF CURRAIS. 

who knew him. To be regarded as an object of admiration and of 
hope by the immediate circle of his friends, is, indeed, no more 
than happens to every young man of any intellectual pretensions ; 
but to Mr. Curran's honour it should not be overlooked, that the 
friends who entertained such sentiments towards him were, all of 
them, those whose zeal and approbation he had won for himself by. 
his own character and talents ; nor was a mere general respect for 
the latter the only feeling that united them with him — they all ap-, 
pear to have been animated by the most anxious and affectionate 
attachment to his person. Their letters to him abound with ex- 
pressions of more than usual endearment, with offers of pecuniary 
supplies, and many other unequivocal demonstrations of the ex- 
treme value in which they held him. At this period of life he used 
to pass considerable intervals of time at his native village, where he 
always entered, with the most good natured vivacity, into all the 
little parties and interests of the place. He, whose lofty and inde- 
pendent spirit was a few years after to bring upon him the charge 
of "lecturing the privy council,"* was in his social intercourse so 
little fastidious or assuming, that he could find abundant amusement 
among the harmless wits and politicians of an obscure little town. 
Nor were these mere temporary feelings, adopted for convenience, 
and as evanescent as the occasions that excited them — all his im- 
pulses were intensely social, and, whether present or absent, his 
heart was still in the midst of the friends and^ companions that he 
loved. His letters from the Temple abound with proofs of these 
amiable propensities; in none of them is the Newmarket circle 
omitted ; he dedicates a portion of every day to thinking of them, 
and of every letter to inquiries after their health and fortunes. This 
unpretending facility of manners, showing how little natural the al- 
liance between superiority of intellect and austereness of demean- 
our, continued ever after prominent in his character; and from the 
event we may learn that such cheerful, conciliating, and sympathis- 
ing habits are the surest road to lasting friendships. Of these, few 
persons ever enjoyed more — the greater number have gone where 
he has followed— still a few, and among them some of his earliest 

* An expression of Lord Clare's.— The whole scene is given hereafter. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 45 

friends, survive ; and it is no less honourable to their constancy 
than to his memory, that the same men, who, more than forty years 
ago, were cheering his efforts, and admitting him to their affections, 
are at this day, with unabated ardour, mourning his loss and cher- 
ishing his fame. 

The despondency which Mr. Curran's generous correspondent 
has just been seen so anxious to alleviate was not merely casual. 
Notwithstanding the liveliness of his conversation, from which a 
stranger would have supposed that his spirits never knew depress- 
ion, he was all his life subject to visitations of constitutional melan- 
choly, which the most ordinary accidents excited and embittered ; 
even at this early time it may be observed constantly breaking out 
in his communications to his friends. After having passed the long 
vacation of 1774 with his family in Ireland, he thus writes to one 
of them upon his return to London. 

" Apjohn and I arrived in London about eight o'clock on Thurs- 
day. When I was set down, and threw myself into a box in the 
next coffee-house to me, I think I never felt so strangely in my life. 
The struggle it cost me to leave Ireland, and the pain of leaving it 
as I did, had been hurried into a sort of numbness by the exertion of 
such an effort, and a certain exclusion of thought, which is often the 
consequence of a strong agitation of mind : the hurry also of the 
journey might in some measure have contributed to sooth for a mo- 
ment these uneasy sensations. But the exertion was now over, the 
hurry was past ; the barriers between me and reflection now gave 
way, and left me to be overwhelmed in the torrent : all the difficul- 
ties, I had encountered, the happy moments I had lately passed, 
all now rushed in upon my mind, in melancholy succession, and 
engrossed the pang in their turn. 

Revolving in his alter'd soul 

The various turns of chance below, 
And now and then a sigh he stole, 

And tears began to flow. 

"At length I roused myself from this mournful reverie, and after 
writing a few words to Newmarket, set out in search of some of my 
old acquaintance. I sought them sorrowing, but there was not evei 



46 ^It'E OF CURRAN. 

one to be found ; they had either changed their abodes, or were in 
the country. How trivial a vexation can wound a mind that is once 
depressed ! Even this little disappointment, though it was of no 
consequence, though it could not surprise me, yet had the power to 
afflict me, at least to add to my other mortifications. I could not 
help being grieved at considering how much more important changes 
may happen even in a shorter time ; how the dearest hopes and 
most favourite projects of the heart may flourish, and flatter us with 
gaudy expectations for a moment, and then, suddenly disappearing, 
leave us to lament over our wretchedness and our credulity. Pleased 
with the novelty of the word, we fasten eagerly on the bauble, till 
satiated with enjoyment, or disgusted with disappointment, we re- 
sign it with contempt. The world in general follows our example, 
and we are soon thrown aside, like baubles, in our turn. And yet, 
dreary as the prospect is, it is no small consolation to be attached 
to, and to be assured of the attachment of some worthy affectionate 
souls, where we may find a friendly refuge from the rigours of our 
destiny; to have even one congenial bosom on which the poor af- 
flicted spirit may repose, which will feelingly participate our joys 
or our sorrows, and with equal readiness catch pleasure from our 
successes, or strive to alleviate the anguish of disappointment." 

In another letter, written a few weeks after, the same unfortunate 
sensibility is more strikingly exemplified, and more vigorously ex- 
pressed. In one passage we clearly recognise the peculiarities of 
his subsequent style. 

" I this day left my lodgings ; the people were so very unruly that 
I could stay no longer : I am now at No. 4, in St. Martin's-street, 
Leicester-fields, not far from my former residence. You will per- 
haps smile at the weakness, yet I must confess it ; never did 1 feel« 
myself so spiritless, so woe-begone, as when I was preparing for 
the removal. I had settled myself with an expectation of remaining 
till I should finally depart for Ireland ; I was now leaving it before 
that period, and my spirits sunk into a mixture of peevishness ant^ 
despondence at the disappointment. I had emptied the desk be- 
longing to the lodgings of my (ew moveables, which I collected in a 
heap on the floor, and prepared to dispose of in my little trunk- 
Good heavens ! in how many various parts, and by how many va- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 47 

rious ways may the poor human heart be wounded! Is it that even 
Philosophy cannot so completely plunge her children in the waters 
of wisdom, that an heel, at least, will not be left vulnerable, and ex- 
posed to the danger of an arrow ? Is the fable equally applicable to 
the mind as to the body? And is all our firmness and intrepidity 
founded ultimately on our weakness and our foibles ? May all our 
giant fortitude be so lulled into slumber, as, ere it awakes, to be 
chained to the ground by a few Lilliputian grievances, and held im- 
moveably by such slender fetters ? Why else shall we be unac- 
countably depressed ? To leave the friends of my heart, to tear my- 
self from their last affecting farewell, to turn my face to a distant 
region, separated from them by mountains and oceans and tempests ; 
to endure all this with something like calmness, and yet to feel pain 
at changing from one street to another ! Strange inconsistence ! and 
yet so it was. I proceeded very slowdy to fill the trunk. I could 
not please myself in the packing. Some letters now presented 
themselves ; I could not put them in without reading. At length I 
made an end of the work, and fell into another reverie. I called to 
mind my first acqaintance with my little trunk ; I industriously 
hunted my memory for every thing that any w^ay related to it, and 
gave my recollection a great deal of credit for being so successful in 
making me miserable. At length I got it behind Tom Gess, and 
saw poor Tom edging forward to avoid its jolting, and longing to be 
relieved from his durance. I saw it embark : over how many billows 
was it wafted, from Cork to Bristol, over how many miles from Bris- 
tol to London ! And how small a portion of that distance must it 
measure back to-day ! And must I be equally slow in my return ? 
"With such sensations I left Mrs. Turner's, perhaps as completely 
miserable as any man in London." 

Of some of his occupations he gives the following account. 

" As to my amusements, they are very few. Since I wrote last, 
I went to one play. 1 commonly spend even more time at home, 
than I can employ in reading of an improving or amusing kind.* As 

* Mr. Curran's cotemporaries at the Temple have confirmed his own ac- 
eount of his habits at that period. He rose very early, studied till he was 
<Jihausted, and then went out in search of his fellaw students, with whom hs- 



48 l-It'E OF CURRAN. 

1 live near the Park, I walk there some time every day. I sometim es 
find entertainment in visiting the diversity of eating places with 
which this town abounds. Here every coal-porter is a politician, 
and vends his maxims in public with all the importance of a man 
who thinks he is exerting himself for the public service : he claims 
the privilege of looking as wise as possible, and of talking as loud, 
of damning the ministry, and abusing the king, with less reserve 
than he would his own equal. Yet, little as these poor people un- 
derstand of the liberty they contend so warmly for, or of the mea- 
sures they rail against, it reconciles one to their absurdity, by con- 
sidering that they are happy at so small an expense as being ridi- 
culous ; and they certainly receive more pleasure from the power of 
abusing, than they would from the reformation of what they con- 
demn. 1 take the more satisfaction in this kind of company, as 
while it diverts me, it has the additional recommendation of recon- 
ciling economy with amusement. 

"Another portion of time I have set apart every day for thinking 
of my absent friends. Though this is a duty that does not give 
much trouble to many, I have been obliged to confine it, or endea- 
vour to confine it, within proper bounds : I have therefore made a 
resolution to avoid any reflections of this sort, except in their allot- 
ted season, that is, immediately after dinner. I am then in a tran- 
quil, happy humour, and I increase that happiness by presenting to 
my fancy those I love in the most advantageous point of view : so 
that however severely I treat them when they intrude in the morn- 
ing, 1 make them ample amends in the evening; I then assure my- 
self that they are twice as agreeable, and as wise and as good as 
they really are." 

The conclusion of this letter shall be given, if not for the sake of 
the incidents, at least to show the writer's sensibility to any pathetic 
occurrence that fell in his way. 

" I have lately made two acquaintances ; one a Frenchman, Dr. 
Du Garreau ; the other is a German, Mr. Skell, for whom I am in- 
debted to the doctor. With this latter I am not yet much acquaint- 

passed the interval till the evening:, when they all generally repaired to any 
debating society that was open. During bis second year at the Temple, he 
spent a considerable portion of his time in the courts of law. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 49 

ed ; the former is really a man of understanding, and I believe of 
worth : he is the son of an advocate in Paris, and practised there 
himself as a physician for some time. He had conceived an affec- 
tion for a lady with whom the difference of their religion prevented 
his union at home ; but, alas ! I believe love is of no particular 
sect ; at least so the lady seemed to think, for she quitted France 
with him, and took his honour as the security for his adhering to a 
ceremony performed between them in Holland. After three or 
four years residence in Amsterdam, where I suppose his practice 
was not considerable, he brought his wife and child to England last 
November. She survived the journey but a few weeks, and left 
the poor man surrounded by every distress. His friends have 
pressed him to return ; but he is determined at all events to remain 
in England, rather than carry his daughter to a country where she 
would not be considered as legitimate. Rouelle had hinted to me 
that there was something singular in his fortune, but I did not know 
the particulars till a few days since, that I breakfasted with him. 
He had taken his litde child on his knee, and after trifling with hec 
for a few moments, burst into tears. Such an emotion could not 
but excite, as well as justify, some share of curiosity. The poor 
doctor looked as if he were conscious I felt for him, and his heart 
was too full to conceal its affliction. He kissed his little orphan, as 
he called her, and then endeavoured to acquaint me with the la- 
mentable detail. It was the hardest story in the world to be told by 
a man of delicacy. He felt all the difficulties of it ; he had many 
things to palliate, some that wanted to be justified ; he seemed fully 
sensible of this, yet checked himself when he slided into any thing 
like defence. I could perceive the conflict shifting the colours on 
his cheek, and I could not but pity him and admire him for such aa 
embarrassment. Yet, notwithstanding all his distresses, he some- 
times assumes all the gaiety of a Frenchman, and is a very enter- 
taining fellow. These are the occasions on which we are almost 
justified in repining at the want of affluence ; to relieve such an heart 
from part of its affliction, surely for such a purpose it is not ambi- 
tious to wish for riches," 

One more of his letters in this year shall be introduced as charac* 
teristic of his mind. The person t© whom it is addresged, a gen - 



50 L^'E OF CLRRAN. 

tleman of the iPiOSt amiable and respected character, has survived 
the writer, but his name is at his own request reluctantly omitted. 
The friendship of which the commencement of this letter contains 
a proof, continued without diminution to the day of Mr. Curran's 
death. 



" MY DEAR DICK, 



*' Your packet was one of the most seasonable, on every 
account. As I think I mentioned to you when I should repay this 
kindness, in my last, I need not repeat it here. I hope you don't 
expect any news from me ; if you did, I would be under a necessity 
of disappointing you. Unfortunately I have no gratification in see- 
ing high houses or tall steeples, no ear to be ravished by barrel-or- 
gans, no public anxiety or private importance by which vanity 
might lay hold on me, no fine clothes, no abundance of money, to 
recommend me to the deity of pleasure. What then can a poor 
devil like me either see or hear that is worth communicating to a 
friend ? In truth, I think I am nearly the same man I ever was ; 
affecting to look wise, and to talk wise, and exhausting most lavishly 
©n looking and talking, the wisdom that a better economist would 
reserve for acting. And yet, Dick, perhaps this is natural ; per- 
haps we are mistaken when we wonder at finding frugality, or even 
avarice, on such good terms with affluence, and extravagance in- 
separable from poverty. In both cases they are effects that flow 
naturally from their causes. They are the genuine issue of their 
respective parents ; who, to own the truth, cherish and preserve 
their offspring with a care truly parental, and unfailingly successful. 
'Tis just so in wisdom, and on the same principle the man who has 
but a very small share of wisdom, (like him whose purse is equally 
shallow) squanders it away on every silly occasion ; he thinks it too 
trifling to be worth hoarding against emergencies of moment : but a 
very wise man, or a very rich man, acts in a manner diametrically 
opposite to this. When the one has ranged his sentiments and mar- 
shalled his maxims, and the other computed his tens of thousands, 
the symmetry of their labours would be destroyed should a single 
dogma escape to the banners of unwiseness, or a single guinea take 
its flight to supply an extravagance. Each atom of the aggregate 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 61 

is held fast by its gravitation to the whole mass ; hence the fool is 
prodigal of his little wisdom, and the sixpence departs in, peace 
from the pocket where it is not troubled with the ceremony of bid- 
ding adieu to another. If any chance should make me master of 
some enormous treasure, T would not despair of finding out its value ; 
and if experience, and the industry of my own folly, shall reap a 
harvest of prudence, I will make you wonder at my care in drying 
it for use. I will regale myself in my old age with the spirit of 
it and dispense the small tea to those who may have occasion 
for it." 

During Mr. Curran's attendance at the Temple, the society in 
which he mixed was almost exclusively that of his Irish fellow- 
students. He was at that time too unknown to have access to the 
circles of literature or fashion, and it was perhaps fortunate for him 
that his obscurity saved him from those scenes, where he might 
have contracted the dangerous ambition of soaring when he should 
have been learning to fly. Of the celebrated persons then in Lon- 
don, he used to mention that he had seen Goldsmith once at a coffee- 
house, Garrick, (whom he recollected with enthusiasm) two or three 
times upon the stage, and Lord Mansfield, whose dignified appear- 
ance made a very solemn impression upon him, upon the bench^ 
The only man of any eminence that he came into personal contacj 
with was Macklin, the actor, and the origin of their acquaintance 
was rather singular. 

After Mr. Curran had concluded his terms, he was detained for 
some time in London in expectation of a remittance from Ireland, 
without which he could neither discharge his arrears at his lodgings? 
nor return to his own country. At length, just as his purse had 
attained " the last stage of inanition," he received a bill of exchange 
upon a banking-house in Lombard-street: without stopping to 
examine the bill minutely, he flew to present it 5 but the banker 
soon discovered that a necessary indorsement was omitted, and of 
course refused to pay it. Of the scene upon this occasion, as it 
took place across the counter, his own consternation at the dreadful 
tidings, and the banker's insensibility to his distress, his solemn 
and repeated protestations that the bill came from a most respect- 
able merchant in the butter trade at Cork; and the wary citizen's 



53 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

marked distrust of all that was Irish, Mr. Curran used to give a most 
dramatic and ludicrous description. Having left the banker's, and 
being without a shilling in his pocket, he strolled into St. James' 
Park, where he remained during his usual dinner hour, considering 
the means of relieving himself from his present necessity ; but after 
long reflection, he could only come to one certain conclusion, that 
the misfortune could never have happened more inopportunely, 
every one of his Irish friends, to whom alone he could have applied, 
having quitted London, leaving him behind, awaiting this remit- 
tance. « 

As he sat upon one of the benches, exhausted with devising ex- 
pedients, he began to whistle a melancholy old Irish air ; an old 
gentleman seated at the other end (it was Macklin) started at the 
well-known sounds. 

" Pray, sir," said the stranger, " may I venture to ask where yoa 
learned that tune .^" 

" Indeed, sir," replied the whistler, in the meek and courteous 
tone of a spirit which affliction had softened, " indeed you may, 
sir ; I learned it in my native country, in Ireland." 

*^ But how comes it, sir, that at this hour, while other people are 
dining, you continue here, whistling old Irish airs?'' 

" Alas ! sir, I too have been in the habit of dining of late, but 
lo-day, my money being all gone, and my credit not yet arrived, I 
am even forced to come and dine upon a whistle in the park." 

Struck by the mingled despondence and playfulness of this con- 
fession, the benevolent veteran exclaimed, " Courage, young man! 
1 think I can see that you deserve better fare ; come along with me, 
and you shall have it." 

About ten years after this interview Macklin came to Dublin : 
Mr. Curran, who in the interval had risen to eminence, was invited 
one evening to a party where the actor was one of the company; 
they v/ere presented to each other, but Macklin failed to recognize 
in the now celebrated advocate and orator, the distressed student in 
St. Jatnes' Park. Mr. Curran, perceiving this, abstained for the 
moment from claiming any acquaintance ; but he contrived in a 
little time to introduce a conversation upon the acts of kindness and 
hospitality which Irishmen so generally receive abroad from such 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 5,^ 

of their countrymen as they may chance to meet ; as a proof of 
which, he began to relate what had happened to himself, and pro- 
ceeded to give a vivid picture of the scene, and (suppressing the 
name) of the generous old man who had befriended him in a land 
of strangers. A glow of recollection was soon observed upon the 
player's countenance ; he started, and fixing his eyes upon the 
speaker, " If my memory fails me not, sir," said he, " we have met 
before ?" « Yes, Mr. Macklin," replied Mr. Curran, taking his 
hand, " indeed we have met ; and though upon that occasion you 
were only performing upon a private theatre, let me assure you, '\ 
that (to adopt the words of a high judicial personage, which you 
have heard before) t/ou yiever acted better?''^ 

Before dismissing this period of Mr. Curran's history, a few 
words may be added upon the subject of the studies, and intel- 
lectual habits of his early days ; for in consequence of his not 
having devoted much time in his latter years to books, and still 
more from the great predominance of imagination over learning, to 
be observed in all the productions of his mind, an opinion has gene- 
rally prevailed that his reading was extremely circumscribed, and 
that he was, from taste or by constitution, intolerant of any regular 
application. If such were the fact, notwithstanding the danger of 
the example, it still would not be denied ; the indolent should have 
all the benefit or all the mischief of such a precedent ; but, in truth, 
Mr. Curran never was a mere gifted idler. He might not, indeed., 
have been always found with a book before him, he might not have 
"been nominally a severe student, but for the course of forty years 
he kept his faculties in perpetual exercise ; and if all that he created 
in public, or in the society of his friends, had been composed in the 
retirement of the closet, it would have scarcely been asserted that 
idleness was the habit of his mind. 

In his youth he was a formal student, to a greater extent than is f 
generally supposed. Before he had attained the age of twenty-five, | 

* These words were addressed from the bench by Lord Mansfield to Mr. 
Macklin, to mark his approbation of the liberal conduct of the latter in a 
cause to which he was a party, and which was tried before his lordship m 
1774. The proceedings in that interesting case are given at length in 
Kirkman's Life of Macklin. 



54 ^^^'^ OF CURRAN. 

when he was called to the bar, independent of his classical acquire- 
ments, which have never been doubted, his acquaintance with 
general literature was far from inconsiderable ; he was perfectly 
familiar with all the most popular of the English poets, historians, 
and speculative writers. He had at the same age, with little assist^ 
ance but that of books, acquired more than a common knowledge of 
the French language. If he did not pursue a long consecutive 
course of legal reading, he was yet perpetually making a vigorous 
plunge, from which he seldom returned without some proof that he 
had reached the bottom. For several years after his admission to 
the bar, he devoted more of his mornings and evenings to the study 
of his profession than his most intimate friends at the time could 
have believed to be compatible with his convivial habits and public 
avocations. His frame was never robust, but it was extremely 
patient of fatigue ; and no matter how great the exhaustion of the 
day, or the evening, a very few hours sleep completely restored it ; 
this natural felicity of constitution he confirmed by early rising, 
constant exercise, the daily practice of cold bathing, and similar 
methods of invigorating the system. 

Indeed, when it is recollected that Mr. Curran, at the period of 
his life at present under consideration, was looking to the bar alone 
for the means of future subsistence, and for the gratification of his 
ambition, it is utterly incredible that he should have neglected the 
ordinary arts by which success was to be attained. According to 
the concurring accounts given by himself and his cotemporaries, he 
neglected none of them. Eloquence was at that time not only the 
most popular, but one of the shortest roads to eminence at the Irish 
bar ; and from the moment of the discovery of his powders as a speak- 
er, he began, and continued, to cultivate them with the utmost as- 
siduity. His enunciation (as has been already observed) was na- 
turally impeded, his voice shrill, and his accent strongly provincial, 
or (to use his own expression) " in a state of nature ;" to remove 
these defects, he adopted the practice of daily reading aloud, slow- 
iy and distinctly, and of most studiously observing and imitating 
the tones and manner of more skilful speakers. The success of this 
exercise and study was so complete, that among his most unrivall- 
ed exceliericies as an orator, were the clearness of his articulation, 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 55 

and a peculiar, uninterrupted, graduated intonation ; which, what- 
ever was the subject, whether tender or impassioned, melodised j 
every period. His person was without dignity or grace — short, ' 
slender, and inelegantly proportioned. To attain an action, that 
might conceal as much as possible these deficiencies, he recited 
perpetually before a mirror, and selected the gesticulation that he 
thought best adapted to his imperfect stature. To habituate his 
mind to extemporaneous fluency, he not only regularly attended 
the debating clubs of London, but, both before and after his admis- 
sion to the bar, resorted to a system of solitary exercise, of which 
the irksomeness cannot be well appreciated by those who have 
never practised it. He either extracted a case from his books, or 
proposed to himself some original question : and this he used to 
debate alone, with the same anxious attention to argument and to 
diction, as if he were discussing it in open court. There is noth- 
ing in all this to excite any wonder ; but certainly the person who 
early submitted to these modes of labour, and frequently resumed 
them, cannot be considered as careless or incapable of application. 
It may be a matter of curiosity with some, to know the writers, 
that, having been Mr. Curran's early favourites, may be supposed 
to have had an influence in forming his style. Some of his letters, 
already given, discover in different passages a preference for the 
manner of Sterne ; a similar resemblance appears more frequently, 
and more strongly, in several others of about the same date, which 
have not been introduced. It was from the " Letters of Junius," '') 
that he generally declaimed before a glass.* Junius and Lord / 
Bolingbroke were the English prose writers, whom he at that 1 
time studied as the most perfect models of the declamatory style. 
Among the English poets, he was passionately fond of " Thomp- 
son's Seasons." He often selected exercises of delivery from 
" Paradise Lost," which he then admired, but subsequently (and it 
is hoped that few will attempt to justify the change) his sensibili- 

* The single exercise that he most frequently repeated for the purpose of 
improving his action and intonation, was the speech of Antony over Caesar's 
body, from Shakspeare's Julius Caesar. This he considered to be a master 
piece of eloquence, comprising in itself, and involving in its delivery, the 
vi'hole compass of the art. He studied it incessantly, and pronounced it 
with great skill, but though he delighted his auditors, he never entirely sat- 
isfied himself; he uniformly recommended it as a lesson to his young 
friends at the bar. 



5(3 LIFE OP CURRAN. 

ty to the licauties of that noble poem greatly subsided.* In this 
jist, the sacred writings must not be omitted ; independent of their 
more solemn titles to his respect, Mr. Curran was from his child* 
hood exquisitely alive to their mere literary excellencies ; and in 
his maturer years seldom failed to resort to them, as to a source of 
the most Splendid and awful topics of persuasion,! 

Before quitting the subject of Mr. Curran's youthful habits, it is 
proper to mention the pleasure that he took in occasionally ming^ 
ling in the society of the lower orders of his countrymen : he w^as 
a frequent attendant at the weddings and wakes of his neighbour- 
hood. Being from his infancy familiar with the native Irish lan- 
guage, he lost nothing of whatever interest such meetings could af- 
ford. They appear to have had considerable influence on his 
mind ; he used to say himself, that he derived his first notions of 
poetry and eloquence from the compositions of the hired mourner 
over the dead.J: It was probably amidst those scenes that he ac- 
quired the rudiments of that thorough knowledge of the Irish char- 
acter, of which he afterwards made so amusing an use in enliven- 

* In criticising Milton, Mr. Curran always dwelt upon what others have 
considered among the most splendid and attractive parts of his work, the 
scenes in Paradise ; in objecting to which, he contended that the human 
characters introduced are detached and solitary beings, whose peculiar sit- 
uation precluded them from displaying the various social feelings and pas- 
sions, which are the proper subjects of poetic emotion. For a vigorous and 
rloquent answer to this objection, see Hazlitt's observations on Paradise 
Lost, in his Lectures upon the English Poets. 

t Of ail the profane writers, Virgil, whom he considered " the prince of 
sensitive poets," was his favourite. For a considerable part of his life, he 
made it a rule to read Homer once a year ; but the more congenial tender- 
ness of V^irgil attracted him every day. 

t It may be necessary to inform some English readers, that the practice 
of formal lamentations over the dead is one of the ancient customs of the 
Irish, which is continued among the lower orders to the present day. In the 
last centurj^ it was not unusual upon the death of persons of the highest 
condition. The ceremony is generally performed by women, who receive 
a remuneration for composing and reciting a "Coronach" at the wake of 
the departed. In some parts of Ireland, these women used formerly to go 
about the country, to " look in" upon such elderly persons as might soon 
require their attendance ; and to remind them, that whenever the hour 
might arrive, a noble Coronach should be ready. Mr. Curran's father-in- 
law, Dr. Creagh, was so molested by one of these dispiriting visitors, and 
Lad such an aversion to the usage, that in the first will he ever made he thus 
begins, after the usual preamble, " requesting it as a favour of my execu- 
tors, that, neither at my wake, nor at my funeral, they will suffer any of the 
savage bowlings, and insincere lamentations, that are usually practised 
upon these serious and melancholy occasions, but to see the whole of my 
burial conducted with silence an4 christian decency." 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 57 

itig a company, and so important a one in confounding a perjured 
witness. It may have been too in this humble intercourse that 
some even of his finer tastes and feelings originated or were con« 
firmed. Out of Ireland the genius of its natives is, in general, but 
partly known. They are, for the most part, represented as comi- 
cal and impetuous, qualities which, lying upon the surface, strike 
the stranger and superficial observer ; but with these they unite 
the deepest sensibility. It is the latter that prevails ; and if their 
pathetic sayings had been as sedulously recorded as their lively 
sallies, it would be seen that they can be as eloquent in their la- 
mentations as they are original in their humour. Of these almost 
national peculiarities, so opposite, yet so constantly associated, 
Mr. Curran's mind strongly partook ; and in his, as in his coun- 
try's character, melancholy predominated. In his earliest, as well 
as his latest speculations, he inclined to take a desponding view of 
human affairs — he appeared, indeed, more frequently in smiles to 
relax his mind, or to entertain his companions ; but when left en- 
tirely to his original propensities, he seems to have ever wept from 
choice. 

One conjecture more shall be hazarded, and so pleasing a one, 
that few can wish it to be unfounded. It was probably from this 
early intercourse with the peasantry of his country, and from the 
consequent conviction of their unmerited degradation, that sprang 
that unaffected soul-felt sympathy for their condition, so conspicu- 
ous in Mr. Curran's political career. Upon this subject it was ev- 
ident that his heart was deeply involved. From them, notwithstand- 
ing much temptation and many dangers, his affections never waver- 
Tpd for an instant. From the first dawn of political obligation upon 
his mind to his latest hour (an interval of more than half a century) 
he never thought or spoke of them but with tenderness, and pity, 
and indignation. At the bar, in the senate,* on the bench, amidst 
his family and friends, or in the society of the most illustrious per- 

* Upon one occasion, alluding in parliament to the general apathy of the 
ministry to the condition of the great body of the Irish people, he observed, 
** I am sorry to see that the rays of the honourable member's panegyric were 
not vertical ; like the beams of the morning, they courted the mountain- 
tops, and left the valleys unilluminated — they fell only upon the great, 
while the miserable poor were left in the shade. "—i^t^a/es in Irish Hoiise. 
of Commons f 1787. 



^jg LIFE OF CURRAN. 

sonai^es of the empire, the sufferings of the Irish peasant were re- 
nicmbereu,and their cause pleaded with an energy and reality that 
proved how well he knew, and how deeply he felt for, that class 
whose calamities lie deplored. " At any time of my life," said he, 
" I might, to a certain degree, as well as others, have tied up my 
countrymen in bundles, and sold them at the filthy market of cor- 
ruption, and have raised myself to wealth and station, and remorse 
— to the envy of the foolish, and the contempt of the wise : but I 
thpught it more becoming to remain below among them, to mourn 
over and console them ; or, where my duty called upon me, to re- 
primand and rebuke them, when they were acting against them- 
•selves." 

In some of the published accounts of Mr. Currants life it has been 
stated, that when at the Temple, and afterwards while struggling 
into notice at the bar, he derived part of his subsistence from contri- 
butions to literary works ; but for this there is no foundation. Du- 
ring the first year of his residence in London his means were sup- 
plied partly by his relatives in Ireland, and partly by some of his 
more affluent companions, who considered his talents a sufiicient 
security for their advances. In the second year he married a daugh- 
ter of the Doctor Creagh already mentioned; her portion w^as not 
considerable, but it was so carefully managed, and his success at the 
bar was so rapid, that he was ever after a stranger to pecuniary 
difficulties. 

It may, too, be, here observed, that had he been originally more 
favoured by fortune, his prospect of distinguished success in his 
profes^on might not have been so great. There is, perhaps, fully 
as much truth as humour in the assertion of an English judge, that 
a barrister's first requisite for attaining eminence is " not to he worth 
a shilling.^'^^ The attractions of the bar, when viewed from a dis- 
tance, will dazzle and seduce for a while. To a young and generous 
spirit it seems, no doubt, a proud thing to mix in a scene where merit 
and talent alone are honoured, where he can emulate the example, and 
perhaps reach the distinctions of our Hales and Holts, and Mansfields. 

* Tiie learned judge alluded to, upon being asked " What conduced most 
to a byrrister s success ?" is said to have replied, " that barristers succeeded 
by many methods ; some by great talents, some by high connexions, some 
by a miiaiile, but the majority by commmQing without a shilling.^' 



LIFE OF CURRAN. QQ 

Eut all this fancied loveliness of the prospect vanishes the moment 
you approach and attempt to ascend. As a calling, the bar is per- 
haps the most difficult, and after the first glow of enthusiasm has 
gone by, the most repelling. To say nothing of the violence of the 
competition, which alone renders it the most hazardous of profes- 
sions, the intellectual labour and the unintellectual drudgery that it 
involves, are such as few have the capacity, or, without the strongest 
incitements, the patience to endure. To an active and philosophic 
mind th^e mere art of reasoning, the simple perception of relations 
whatever the subject matter may be, is an exercise in which a mind 
so constituted may delight ; but to such a one the study of the law 
has but little to offer. If the body of English law be a scientific 
system, it is a long time a secret to the student : it has few immuta- 
ble truths, few master-maxims, few regular series of necessary and 
nicely adapted inferences. In vain will the student look for a few 
general principles, to whose friendly guidance he may trust, to con- 
duct him unerringly to his object: to him it is all perplexity, caprice, 
and contradiction* — arbitrary and mysterious rules, of which to 
trace and comprehend the reasons is the work of years — forced con- 
structions, to which no equity of intention can reconcile — logical 
evasions, from which the mind's pride indignantly revolts — of all 
these the young lawyer meets abundance in his books : and to en- 
counter and tolerate them he must have some stronger inducement 
than a mere liberal ambition of learning or of fame. We conse- 
quently find that there is no other profession supplying so many 
members who never advance a single step ; no other which so 
many abandon, disgusted and disheartened by the sacrifices that it 
exacts. 

To these fearful pursuits Mr. Curran brought every requisite of 
aiind and character, and education, besides the above grand requi- 
site of want of fortune. Instead of being surprised at his eminent 

* This was at least what Mr. Curran found it. In his poem on Friend- 
ship, already mentioned, he says, 

" Oft, when condemn'd 'midst Gothic tomes to pore, 
And, dubious, con th' embarrass'd sentence o'er. 
While meteor meaning sheds a sickly ray 
Through the thick gloom, then vanishes away, 
With the dull toil tired out, th' indignant mind 
Bursts from the yoke, and wanders unconfined.'* 



^Q LIFE OF eURRAN. 

success, the wonder would have been if such a man had failed. 
Having acquirements and hopes, and a station, above his circum- 
stances, to hold his ground, he could not allow his powers to slum- 
ber for a moment. His poverty, his pride, a secret consciousness 
of his value, and innate superstitious dread of obscurity, " that last 
infirmity of noble minds," kept him for ever in motion, and impa- 
tient to realize his own expectations, and the predictions of those 
friends by whom his efforts were applauded and assisted. 

It appears in a passage of one of his letters from the Temple, 
that he had, for a while, an idea of trying his fortune at the Ameri- 
can bar. " Mrs. W." says he, " concludes her letter with mention- 
ing her purpose of revisiting America, and repeating her former ad- 
vice to me on that subject. As for my part, I am totally undeter- 
mined. I may well say, with Sir Roger de Coverly, that ' much may 
be said on both sides.' The scheme might be attended with ad- 
vantage ; yet I fear my mother, especially, would not be easily re- 
conciled to such a step." But he soon abandoned the idea ; for in 
a letter dated a few weeks after he says — " As to the American 
project, I presume it is unnecessary to tell you that the motives are 
now no more, and that the design has expired of consequence. I 
have been urged to be called to that bar, and my chief inducement 
was my friendship for Mrs. W., to whom I might be useful in that 
way ; but there isso little likelihood of her?going, that I shall scarcely 
have an opportunity of sacrificing that motive to my attachment for 
Ireland." 



LIFE OF CURRAN. gl 



CHAPTER III. 

Mf. Curran called to the Irish bar— Dissimilarities between that and the 
English bar — Causes of the difference. 

Mr. Curran was called in Michaelmas term, 1775, to the Irish 
bar, which was to occupy so distinguished a portion of his future 
life ; but as the genius and habits of that bar, during the whole of 
his career, differed in many particulars essentially from that of Eng- 
land, it will be necessary to make a passing allusion to those dis- 
tinctions, without which English readers might find it difficult to re- 
concile the specimens of his eloquence that occur in the following 
pages, with their previous ideas of forensic oratory. 

No person who has attended to the course of forensic proceed- 
ings in the two countries can have failed to have observed, that 
while in England they are (with a very few exceptions) carried on 
with cold and rigorous formality, in Ireland they have not unfre- 
quently been marked by the utmost vivacity and eloquence. The 
English barrister, even in cases of the deepest interest, where pow- 
erful emotions are to be excited, seldom ventures to exercise his ima- 
gination, if, indeed, long habits of restraint have left him the capa- 
city to do so : yet in the Irish courts, not only are such subjects dis- 
cussed in a style of the most impassioned oratory, but many exam- 
ples might be produced, where questions more strictly technical, 
and apparently the most inappropriate themes of eloquence, have 
still been made the occasion of very fervid appeals to the feelings 
or the fancy. This latitude of ornament and digression, once so 
usual at the Irish bar, has been never known, and would never have 
"been tolerated in Westminster Hall. It would be there accounted 
no less new than extravagant to hear a counsel pathetically re- 
minding the presiding judge of the convivial meetings of their ear- 
ly days,* or enlivening his arguments on a grave question of law 
by humorous illustFation. t Yet was all this listened to in Ireland 

* See Mr. Curran's apostrophe to Lord Avonmore, chap. iv. 

t Of these, examples without number might be produced from Mr. Cur- 
ran's law arguments. His published speech in the Court of Exchequer, on 
Mr. Justice Johnson's case, is full of them. Equally striking instances oc- 
cux in his argument eo the game question before the Court of King's Bench*- 



g2 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

with favour and admiration. It had, indeed, little influence upon 
the derisions of the bench. The advocate might have excited the 
smiles or tears of his hearers, but no legal concessions followed. 
The judges who showed the most indulgence and sensibility to these 
episodes of fancy were ever the most conscientious in preserving 
the sacred stability of law. Into the counsel's mirth or tenderness,- 
no matter how digressive, they entered for the moment more pleas- 
ed than otherwise with irregularities that gratified their taste and 
relieved their labour ; but with them the triumph of eloquence was 
"but evanescent — the oration over, they resumed their gravity and 
firmness, and proved by their ultimate decision, that if they relaxed 
for an instant, it was from urbanity, and not from any oblivion of 
the paramount duties of their station. The effects, however, which 
such appeals to the passions produced (as they still continue to do) 
upon juries, was very different ; and when the advocate transferred 
the same style into his addresses to the bench, it was not that his 
judgment had selected it as the most appropriate, but because he 
found it impossible to avoid relapsing into those modes of influen- 
cing the mind, which he had been long habituated to employ with 
so much success in another quarter. 

In accounting for this adoption at the Irish bar, of a style of elo- 
quence so much more fervid and poetical than the severer notions of 
the English courts would approve, something must be attributed to 
the influence of the national character. From whatever cause it has 
arisen, the Irish are by temperament confessedly more warm and 
impetuous than their neighbours : their passions lying nearer the 

** The minister going- to the House of Commons might be arrested upon the 
information of an Irish chairman, and the warrantot'a trading justice. Mr, 
Pitt might be brought over here in vincidis. What to do ? to see whether 
he can be bailed or not. 1 remember Mr. Fox was once here — during the 
lifetime of this country —so might he be brought over, it ma}^ facilitate the 
intercourse between the countries, for any man may travel at the public ex- 
pense ; as, suppose I gave an Irishman in I..ondon a small assault in trust, 
when the vacation comes, he knocks at the door of a trading justice, and 
tells him, he wants a warrant against the counsellor. What counsellor ? — 
Oh, sure every body knows the counsellor. Well, friend, and what is your 
name ? — Thady O'Flannigan, please your honour. — What countryman are 
you ? — An Englishman, by construction. Very well, Til draw upon my cor- 
respondent in Ireland for the body of the counsellor." 

For a more modern example ot eloquence and humour upon such ques- 
tions, the Irish reader is referred to the argument of the present Solicitor 
General, (Mr. C. K. Bushe), in the case of the King against 0'Grad3\ 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 63 

surface, their actions are more governed by impulse, and their dic- 
tion more adorned by imagination, than it would be reasonable to 
expect in a colder, more advanced, and philosophic people. In 
addressing persons so constituted, the methods most likely to pre- 
vail are sufficiently obvious. The orator, who knows any thing of 
his art, must be aware that frigid demonstration alone is not the 
best adapted to men who take a kind of pride in regulating their 
decisions by their emotions, and that a far more certain artifice of 
persuasion must be to fill their minds with those glowing topics by 
which they habitually persuade themselves. 

It may be observed, too, that although the habits of mind which 
must be cultivated, in order to succeed in such a style of eloquence, 
are altogether different from those involved in the study of the law, 
yet in Ireland they have never been deemed incompatible with le- 
gal occupations. The preparation for the bar there has never been 
so entirely technical as it usually is in England : a very general 
taste for polite literature and popular acquirements has been united 
with the more stern and laborious attainments of professional know- 
ledge, and it is to this combination of pursuits, that invigorate the 
understanding with those which exercise th» imagination and im- 
prove the taste, that must be attributed that mass of varied and ef- 
fective talent, which has so long existed among the members of the 
Irish bar. 

But the immediate cause of that animated style of eloquence that 
has of late years prevailed there, appears to have been the influ- 
ence of the Irish House of Commons. 

It was principally in the productions of the eminent leaders ia 
that house, that originated the modern school of Irish oratory. In 
Ireland this popular style made its way from the senate to the bar ; 
though at first view such a transition may not seem either necessary 
or natural. In England it has not taken place. At the time that 
the first Mr. Pitt, the pride of the English senate, was exalting and 
delighting his auditors by the majesty of his conceptions and thje in- 
trepid originality of his diction, Westminster Hall remained inac- 
cessible to any contagious inspiration. At a later period, upon the 
memorable trial of Warrei Hastings, the contrast is brought more 
palpably to view. While the celebrated prosecutors in that cause 



g4 LIFE OF CURRAN. 1 

were soaring as high as imagination could find language lo sustain it. 
while they were " shaking the walls that surrounded them with those 
anathemas of super-human eloquence,"* which remain among the 
recorded models of British oratory, the lawyers, who conducted the 
defence were in general content to retaliate with tranquil argument 
and uninspired refutation. The introduction, therefore, of the par- 
liamentary manner into the courts of Ireland, is to be accounted for 
by some circumstances peculiar to the country. 

During .that period when eloquence flourished most in the Irish 
parliament, that is, for the last forty years of its existence, the num- 
ber of barristers in the House of Commons bore a much greater 
proportion to the whole than has been at any time usual in England.! 
In those days the policy by which Ireland was governed being ia 
the utmost degree unpopular, the whole patronage of the Irish ad- 
ministration was necessarily expended in alluring supporters of 
the measures against which the nation exclaimed. A majority of 
numbers in the House of Commons could then be easily procured, 
and for a long time such a majority had been sufficient for every 
purpose of tlie government ; but at the period in question, the in- 
creasing influence and talent of the minority rendered it necessary 
to adopt every method of opposing them (if possible) with a pre- 
dominance of intellect. The means of doing this, it would appear* 
were not to be found in that body which ruled the country, and re- 
course was had to the expedient of enlisting the rising men of the 



* Erskine/'s defence of Stockdale. This celebrated advocate may "be ad- 
duced ia refutation of some of the above opinions, and it must be admitted 
that in some degree he forms an exception ; yet, without inquiring novv^ 
whether his was a st3'Ie of eloquence peculiar to the individual, or character- 
istic to the Engli.sh bar ; it may be observed, that it differed essentially from 
that which prevailed at this time in the British parliament, and to a still 
greater extent in the Irish senate and at the Irish bar. If he had produced 
many such passages as that of the American savage,' it would have been 
otherwise ; but his genera! strength did not lie in the fervour of his imagina- 
tion ; it was by the vigour of his ethics and his logic, enforced by illustra- 
tions rather felicitous than imjiassioned, that he brought over the judg- 
ment to his side. It is not intended by these remarks to assign a superiority 
to either style — it is to be supposed that the eminent advocates of the two 
bars adopted the manner that was best suited to their respective countries. 

t See the biographical sketches of the eminent Irish senators, in Hardy's 
Life, t*f Lord Cuarleraont- S^jq abo note, chsfp, iv. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. G5 

bar in the service of the administration.* Accordingly, every bar- 
rister who had popular abilities enough to render his support of 
any moment, found a ready admission into parliament, upon the con- 
dition of his declaring for the viceroy ; and in the event of his dis- 
playing sufficient talent and constancy, was certain of being reward- 
ed*with the highest honours of his profession. "* 

But independent of those who were thus introduced to the senate, 
the bar was the profession most generally resorted to by the mem- 
bers or dependents of the highest families ; as one in which, with- 
out any claim of merit, they could, through the influence of their 
patrons, obtain situations of professional emolument, and where, if 
they possessed such a claim, the road was so open to legal prefer- 
ment and to political distinction ; and consequently all of the latter 
description, recommended by their talents, and supported by the 
power of their connexions, found access to the House of Commons, 
long before that period of standing and of professional reputation, 
at which the succesful English barrister is accustomed or deems it 
prudent to become a senator. 

These circumstances alone would in a great degree account for 
the number of lawyers in the Irish parliament ; but it should be 
farther observed, that it was not any particular class that looked 
to or obtained a seat in that assembly : the ambition of appearing 
there was very general at the Irish bar ; it was the grand object 
upon which every enterprizing barrister fixed his eye and his heart. 
This was the age of political speculation ; it was. " Ireland's life 

* Such was the commencement of (among others) the late Lord Clonmel s 
fortune. "The Marquis of Townshend had expressed his wishes to Lord 
Chancellor Liflford, for the assistance of some young gentlemen of the bar, 
on whose talent and fidelity he might rely, in the severe parliamentary cam- 
paigns then (1769) likely to take place. Lord Lifford recommended Mr. 
Scott, who was accordingly returned to parliamentj to oppose the party led 
on by the celebrated Flood."— Hardy's Life of Lord Charlemont. 

The necessity of calling in such aid gives us but a poor idea ot the enu- 
I cationandtalentsof the Irish aristocracy of the time. Mr. Grattan, in 1797, 
thus mentions the great improvement in the intellect of his country that he 
had witnessed. " The progress of the human mind in the course of the last 
twenty-five years has been prodigious in Ireland ; I remember wdien there 
scarcely appeared a publication in a newspaper of any degree of merit, 
which has not been traced to some person of note, on the part of government 
or the opposition ; but now a multitude of very powerful publications appear, 
from authors entirely unknown, of profound andfspirited investigation."-- 
Letter to the citizens of Dublin, 



66 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

time." Great original questions were daily agitated in her parlia- 
ment : the struggle between popular claims and ancient prerogatives 
was a scene where much seemed likely to be gained — by the venal 
for themselves, by the honest for their country ; but whether con- 
sidered as a post of honour or of profit, it was one to which men of 
colder temperaments than the Irish might be easily moved to Sis- 
pire. 

The consequence of this intermixture of political with legal pur- 
suits was, that the talents most suited to advance the former were 
much cultivated and constantly exercised ; and from this difference 
in the objects and habits of the bars of the two countries appear to 
have principally resulted the different styles of oratory displayed by 
the members of each, both in their parliamentary and forensic exer- 
tions. The English barrister, long disciplined to technical obser- 
vances, having passed the vigour of his intellect in submissive re- 
verence to rules and authorities, brings into the House of Com- 
mons the same subtle propensities, and the same dread of expand- 
ed investigation and of rhetorical ornament that his professional du- 
ties imposed ; but in Ireland the leading counsel were also from an 
early age distinguished members of the senate. If in the morning 
their horizon was bounded by their briefs, in a few hours their minds 
were free to rise, and extend it as far as the stateman's eye could 
reach ; they had the daily excitation and tumult of popular debate to 
clear av/ay any momentary stagnations of fancy or enterprize ; the 
lawyer became enlarged into the legislator, and instead of intro- 
ducing into the efforts of the latter the coldness and constraint of 
his professional manner, he rather delighted to carry back with him 
to the forum, all the fervour, and pomp, and copiousness of the de- 
liberative style. 

The parliament of Ireland, the nurse of the genius and ambition 
of its bar, is now extinct; but the impulse that it gave is not yet 
spent ; the old have not yet forgotten the inspiration of the scene 
where they beheld so many accomplished orators pass their most 
glorious hours ; the young cannot hear without a throb of emulation 
the many wonderous things of that proud work of their fathers, 
which was levelled for having towered too high ; nor is the gen- 
eral regret of the bar for its fall unincreased by their possession and 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 67 

daily admiration of two noble and still perfect relics, attesting the 
magnificence of the structure they have survived.* 

Another peculiarity of the Irish bar that is now passing away, 
but which prevailed to a great extent during Mr. Curran's forensic 
career, was the frequency of collisions between the bar and the 
bench. It was often his fate to be involved in them, and many are 
the instances of the promptness of repartee, and of the indignant in- 
trepidity with which on all such occasions he defended the privileges 
of the advocate. It will be presently seen that he had scarcely ap- 
peared at the bar, when he showed how he could encounter and tri- 
umph over all the taunts and menaces of a hostile judge. The 
same spirit of resistance and retaliation will be found in his contests 
with Lord Clare ; and at a much subsequent period, when he was 
exerting himself in a cause with his characteristic firmness, the pre- 
siding judge having called the sheriff to be ready to take into custody 
any one who should disturb the decorum of his court, " Do, Mr. 
Sheriff," replied Mr. Curran, " go and get ready my dungeon ; pre- 
pare a bed of straw for me ; and upon that bed I shall to-night re- 
pose with more tranquillity than I should enjoy were 1 sitting upon 
that bench with a consciousness that I disgraced it." 

The same political causes that have been already alluded to as 
influencing the oratory of the Irish bar, will in a great measure ac- 
count for these conflicts in the courts, and for that tone of sarcasm 
and defiance assumed by the barrister on such occasions. 

It was one of the public calamities of the period when such scenes 
were most frequent, that in the selection of persons to fill the judi- 
cial seat, more attention was often paid to family interest and politi- 
cal services than to the claims of merit, or the benefit of the commu- 
nity. No doubt it sometimes happened that this important ofiice 
was bestowed upon men, to whom the appointment to situations of 
honour and of trust was less a gift, than the payment of the justest 
debt. What dignity could be too exalted for the learned and ac- 
complished Lord Avonmore ? What trust too sacred for Lord Kil- 
warden, the most conscientious, and pacific, and merciful of men? 

* Messrs. Bushe and Plunkett, two of the members of the Irish House of 
Coranaons, the most distinguished for eloquence, continue at the Irish bar 



68 l-Ii?'E OF CURRAN. 

But if Ireland beheld such persons adorning their station, she had 
the anguish and humiliation to see others degrading it by their poli- 
tical fury, or by the more indecent gratification of their particular 
animosities. Influenced by such unworthy feelings of party or of 
private hostility, the judges in those days were too prone to consider 
it a branch of their oflicial duty to discountenance any symptoms of 
independence in their court; and though at times they may have 
succeeded, yet at others, indignant and exemplary was the retalia- 
tion to which such a departure from their dignity exposed them : for 
it was not unusual that the persons who made these experiments 
t]pon the spirit of the bar, and whose politics and connexions had 
raised them to a place of nominal superiority, were in public con- 
sideration, and in every intellectual respect, the inferiors of the men 
that they undertook to chide. It sometimes happened too that the 
parties, whose powers might be less unequal, had been old parlia- 
mentary antagonists; and when the imputed crimes of the opposi- 
tionist came to be visited upon the advocate, it is not surprising that 
he should have retorted with pride, and acrimony, and contempt. 
Hence arose in the Irish courts those scenes of personal contention, 
which the different character of the bench in later times precludes, 
and which (whatever side gain the victory) must ever be deprecated 
as ruinous to the client, and disgraceful to that spot, within whose 
precincts faction and passion should never be permitted to intrude. 
But though the solemnity of judicial proceedings in Ireland might 
have been often disturbed by the preceding causes, they have been 
more frequently enlivened by others of a less unamiable description* 
Notwithstanding the existence there of that religious and political 
bigotry which tends to check every cheerful impulse, and in their 
place to substitute general distrust and gloom, these baneful effects 
have been powerfully counteracted by the more prevailing influence 
of the national character. The honest kindlv affections of nature, 
though impeded, have still kept on their course. In spite of all the 
sufferings and convulsions of the last century, the social vivacity of 
the Irish was proverbial. It subsisted, as it still subsists, in an emi- 
nent degree in their private intercourse ; it may be also seen con- 
stantly breaking forth in their public discussions. At the bar, where 
the occasions of jocularity so frequently occur, it is, as might be ex- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 69 

pected, most strikingly displayed. The Irish judges have not 
disdained to resign themselves to the favourite propensity of their 
country. The humorous sally or classical allusion, which would 
have pleased at the table, has not beeen frowned upon from the 
bench : their habits of social intimacy with the bar, and their own 
tastes as scholars and companions, have rather prepared them to tol- 
erate, and even join in those lively irregularities which the more se- 
vere decorum of Westminster Hall might condemn. This urbanity 
and indulgence still remains ; and scarcely a term passes over without 
many additions, either from the bar or the bench, to the large fund 
of Irish forensic humour. 

A more frequent and less dignified description of mirth, of 
which so much may be observed in the legal proceedings of Ire- 
land, is that which originates in the particular character of the 
lower orders of that country. They abound in sagacity and repar- 
tee ; qualities to which, when appearing as unwilling as witnesses, or 
when struggling under the difficulties of a cross examination, they 
seldom fail to fly for shelter. Their answers on such occasions are 
singularly adroit and evasive,* and the advocate is consequently 
obliged to adopt every artifice of humour and ridicule, as more ef- 
fectual than seriousness or menace, to extract the truth and expose 
their equivocations. The necessity of employing such methods oi 
confounding the knavish ingenuity of a witness, perpetually occa- 
sions the most striking contrasts between the solemnity of the sub- 
jects, and the levity of the language in which they are investigated.- 
It is particularly in the Irish criminal courts that scenes of this com- 
plicated interest most constantly occur. In the front appear the 
counsel and the evidence in a dramatic contest, at which the audi- 
tors cannot refrain from bursts of laughter, and at a little distance 
behind, the prisoner under trial, gazing upon them with agonized 
attention, and catching at a presage of his fate in the alternating 
dexterity or fortune of the combatants. 

This intrusion of levity into proceedings that should be marked 
by pomp and dignity may be indecent, but it is inevitable. With- 
out this latitude of examination no right would be secure, and wh'^n 

* See Mr. Curjan's cross examination of O'Brien, inserted hereafter. 



70 LITE OF CURRAN. 

exerted, no gravity can resist its influence ; even the felons visage is 
often roused from its expression of torpid despair by the sallies that 
accompany the disclosure of his crimes. As long therefore as the 
Irish populace retain their present character of vivacity and acute- 
ness, the Irish advocate must cultivate and display his powers of 
humour, often, perhaps, to a greater extent than his own better taste 
would desire ; and the courts, aware of the necessity of such an in- 
strument for eliciting the truths will not consider it incumbent on 
them to interfere with its use. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 71 



CHAPTER IV. 

Mr. Curran's early success at the bar — His contest with Judge Robinson — 
His defence of a Roman Catholic priest— His duel with Mr. St. Leger — 
Receives the dying benediction of the priest — Lord Avonmore's friend- 
ship — His character of Lord Avonmore— Monksof St. Patrick, and list of 
the original members— Anecdotes of Lord Avonmore— Mr. Curran's en- 
trance into parliament. 

Mr. Curran has been frequently alluded to as one of the many 
examples in the history of the bar, of the highest talents remaining 
for a long time unknown and unrewarded. This, however, was not 
the fact : so general was the reputation of his abilities, and so nu- 
merous his personal friends, that he became employed immediate- 
ly, and to an extent that is very unusual with those, who, like him, 
have solely depended upon their own exertions, and upon accident- 
al support.* 

The failure of Mr. Curran's first attempt at speaking has been 
mentioned : a more singular instance of that nervousness which 
so frequently accompanies the highest capacity, occurred to him 
upon his debut in the courts. The first brief that he held was ir^ 
the court of Chancery ; he had only to read a short sentence from 
his instructions, but he did it so precipitately and inaudibly, that 
the chancellor. Lord Liflford, requested of him to repeat the words, 
and to raise his voice : upon this his agitation became so" extreme 
that he was unable to articulate a syllable ; the brief dropped from 
his hands, and a friend who sat beside him was obliged to take it 
up and read the necessary passage. 

This difference, however, totally vanished whenever he had to 
repel what he conceived an unwarrantable attack. It was by giv- 
ing proofs of the proud and indignant spirit with which he could 
chastise aggression, that he first distinguished himself at the bar :t of 

* The fact of his early practice appears from his own fee-book in which 
the receipts commence from the day after he was called to the bar. The 
first year produced eighty-two guineas, the second between one and two 
hundred, and so on, in a regularly increasing proportion. 

t His first occasion of displaying that high spirit which was afterwards so 
prominent in his character, was at the election of Tallagh, where be was 



72 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

this his contest with Judge Robinson is recorded as a very early and 
memorable instance. Mr. Curran having observed in some case be- 
fore that judge, " That he had never met the law as laid down by his 
lordship, in any book in his library," " That may be, sir," said the 
judge, in an acrid contemptuous tone ; " but I suspect that your li- 
brary is very small." His lordship, who, like too many of that 
time, was a party zealot, was known to be the author of several 
anonymous political pamphlets, which were chiefly conspicuous for 
their despotic principles and excessive violence. The young barris- 
ter, roused by the sneer at his circumstances, replied that true it was 
that his library might be small, but he thanked heaven that, among 
his books, there were none of the wretched productions of the fran- 
tic pamphleteers of the day. " I find it more instructive, my lord, to 
study good works than tcf compose bad ones ; my books may be 
few, but the title-pages give me the writers' names : my shelf is 
not disgraced by any of such rank absurdity that their very authors 
are ashamed to own them." 

He was here interrupted by the judge, who said, " Sir, you are 
forgetting the respect which you owe to the dignity of the judicial 
character." — " Dignity !" exclaimed Mr. Curran ; " my lord, upon 
that point I shall cite you a case from a book of some authority, 
w ith which you are perhaps not unacquainted. A poor Scotchman,* 
upon his arrival in London, thinking himself insulted by a stran- 
ger, and imagining that he was the stronger man, resolved to resent 
the affront, and taking off his coat, delivered it to a bystander to 
hold ; but having lost the battle, he turned to resume his garment, 
when he discovered that he had unfortunately lost that also, that 
the.trustee of his habilaments had decamped during the affray. So, 
my lord, when the person, who is invested with the dignity of the 
judgment-seat, lays it aside' for a moment, to enter into a disgrace- 
ful personal contest, it is vain, when he has been worsted in the 

enjraged as counsel, a few months after his admission to the bar. One of- 
Ihe candidates, presuming- upon his own rank, and upon the j'oung advo- 
cate's unostentations appearance, indulged in some rude language towards 
him ; but was instantly silenced by a burst of impetuous and eloquent invec- 
live, which it at that time required an insult to awaken. 

* Perhaps it is unnecessary to remind most readers, that the Scotchman 
alluded to is Strap, in Smollett's Iloderic Random. 



I 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 73 

encounter, that he seeks to resume it — it is in vain that he endeav- 
ours to shelter himself from behind an authority, which he has aban- 
doned." 

Judge Robinson. — ' If you say another word sir, I'll commit you.' 

Mr. Curran. — " Then, my lord, it will be the best thing you'll 
have committed this term." 

The judge did not commit him ; but he was understood to have 
solicited the bench to interfere, and make an example of the advo- 
cate by depriving him of his gown, and to have received so little 
encouragement, that he thought it most prudent to proceed no furth- 
er in the affair. 

From this, and many other specimens of spirit and ability, Mr; 
Curran's reputation rapidly increased ; but it was not till he had 
been four or five years at the bar that his powers as an advocate be- 
came fully known. His first opportunity of displaying them was 
in a cause at the Cork Assizes, in which a Roman Catholic priest, 
the Rev. Mr. Neale, brought an action against a nobleman of that 
county (Lord Doneraile), for an Assault and battery. 

The circumstances attending this case mark the melancholy con- 
dition of the times. They afford a single, but a very striking ex- 
ample of those scenes of local despotism and individual suffering, 
of which, at this degraded period, Ireland was daily the witness 
and the victim. 

The nobleman in question had contracted an intimacy with a 
young Voman, whose family resided in the parish of which the 
plaintiff in this action was the priest. This woman's brother hav- 
ing committed some offence against religion, for which the Roman 
Catholic bishop of the diocese had directed that the censures of 
the church should be passed upon him, she solicited Lord Done- 
raile to interfere, and to exert his influence and authority for the 
remission of the offender's sentence. His lordship, without hesita- 
tion, undertook to interpose his authority. For this purpose he 
proceeded, accompanied by one of his relatives, to the house, or 
rather cabin, of the priest. As soon as he arrived there, disdain- 
ing to dismount from his horse, he called in a loud and imperious 
tone, upon the inhabitant to come forth. The latter happened at 

10 



74 I^lFE OF GURU AN. 

that moment to be in the act of prayer ; but hearing the voice, 
which it would have been perilous to disregard, he discontinued 
his devotions to attend upon the peer. The minister of religion 
appeared before him (an affecting spectacle, to a feeling mind, of 
infirmity and humility), bending under years, his head uncovered, 
and holding in his hand the book which was now his only source 
of hope and consolation, iiis lordship ordered him to take off the 
sentence lately passed upon his favourite's brother. The priest, 
struggling between his temporal fears and the solemn obligations of 
his church, could only reply, with respect and humbleness, that he 
would gladly comply with any injunction of his lordship, but that 
to do so in the present instance was beyond his power ; that he 
was only a parish priest, and, as such, had no authority to remit an 
ecclesiastical penalty imposed by his superior ; that the bishop 
alone could do it. To a second and more angry mandate, a simi- 
lar answer was returned, upon which the nobleman, forgetting what 
he owed to his own dignity, and the pity and forbearance due to 
age, and the reverence due to religion, raised his hand against the 
unoffending old man, who could only escape the blows directed 
against his person by tottering back into his habitation, and secu- 
ring its door against his merciless assailant. 

For this disgraceful outrage, to which the sufferer was exposed, 
because he would not violate the sanctity of his own character and 
the ordinances of his church, for the gratification of a proflio-ate 
woman, who chanced to be the mistress of a peer, he for some 
time despaired of obtaining redress. So great was the provincial 
power of this nobleman, and such the political degradation of the 
Roman Catholic clergy, that the injured priest found a difficulty in 
procuring an advocate to plead his cause. At length, several to 
whom he applied having (according to the general report) declined 
to be concerned for so unpopular a client,* Mr. Curran justly con- 
ceiving that it would be a stain upon his profession if such scenes 

* In 1735, a Catholic noblemaji (Lord Clancarty) brought an ejectment 
to recover bis family estates that had been confiscated, but by a resolution 
of the Irish House of Commons, all barristers, solicitors, attorneys, or proc- 
tors, that should be concerned for him, were voted public enemies (O'Con- 
nor's History of the Irish Catholics, p. 218 ;j and in Ireland the prejudices, 
which had dictated so iniquitous a measure, were not extinct in 1780. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 75 

of lawless violence were allowed to pass without investigation, took 
a step which many considered as most romantic and imprudent, 
and only calculated to baffle all his prospects upon his circuit; he 
tendered his services to the unfriended plaintiff, and, the unexpect- 
ed offer being gratefully accepted, laid the story of his unmerited 
wrongs before a jury of his country. 

No printed report of this trial has been preserved, but all the ac- 
countsof it agree that the plaintiff's counsel acquitted himself with 
eminent ability. And it is only by adverting to the state of those 
times, that we can appreciate the ability that could obtain success. 
This was not, as an ordinary case, between man and man, where 
each may be certain of an equitable hearing. The advocate had to ad- 
dress a class of men who were full of furious and inveterate preju- 
dices against his client. The very appearance of a Roman Cath- 
olic clergyman, obtruding his wrongs upon a court of justice, was 
regarded as a presumptuous novelty. To the minds of the bigoted 
jurors of that day, his demand of redress was an act of rebellion 
against the protestant ascendancy — a daring effort to restore a de- 
posed religion to its throne. The cause had also, from the char- 
acters of the parties, excited the greatest public interest, and the 
sympathy of the public, as is always the case when no epidemic 
passions intervene, was upon the side of the oppressed ; but the 
general expression of such a feeling was rather detrimental to its 
object. The crowds that filled, and surrounded the court, upon 
the day of trial, were Roman Catholics, and were supposed, by a 
very obvious construction, to have assembled, not so much to wit- 
ness a triumph of justice, as to share in a triumph of their religion. 
Upon such an occasion, the advocate had not merely to state the 
fact and apply the law ; before he could convince or persuade, he 
had to pacify — to allure his hearers into a patient attention, and 
into a reversal of the hostile verdict, which, before they were 
sworn, they had tacitly pronounced. These were the difficulties 
against which Mr. Curran had to contend, and which he overcame. 
The jury granted a verdict to his client, with thirty guineas dama- 
ges. So small a sum would now be deemed a very paltry remu- 
neration for such an injury ; but in Ireland, about forty years ago, 
to have wrung even so much from a protestant jury, in favour of si 



•yg LIFE OF CURRAN. 

Catholic priest, against a protestant nobleman, was held to be such 
a triumph of forensic eloquence, and to be in itself so extraordina- 
ry a circumstance, that the verdict was received by the people at 
large as an important political event. 

In a part of his address to the jury in this case, the plaintiff's 
counsel animadverted, with the utmost severity of invective, upon 
the unworthy conduct of the defendant's relative (Mr. St. Leger), 
who had been present, and countenancing the outrage upon the 
priest. At length, his zeal and indignation hurrying him beyond 
his instructions, he proceeded to describe that gentleman (who had 
lately left a regiment that had been ordered on actual service), as 
" a renegado soldier, a drummed-out dragoon, who wanted the 
courage to meet the enemies of his country in battle, but had the 
heroism to redeem the ignominy of his flight from danger, by rais- 
ing his arm against an aged and unoffending minister of religion, 
who had just risen from putting up before the throne of God a pray- 
er of general intercession, in which his heartless insulter was inclu- 
ded. 

As soon as the trial was over, he was summoned to make a pub- 
lic apology for those expressions, or to meet Mr. St. Leger in the 
field.* He was fully sensible that his language had not been strict- 
ly warrantable, and that a barrister had no right to take shelter un- 
der his gown from the resentment of those, whose feelings and 
character he might have unjustifiably attacked ; but perceiving that 

* There was another circumstance during this trial, which had given 
equal offence, and which, whatever judgment may be passed upon it now, 

-JE^as well calculated to influence the jury. Mr. Curran knew that Mr. St. 
Leger was to be produced as one of the defendant's witnesses, and it was 
in order to diminish the weight of his testimony, that he had described him 
as above. He had, however, mentioned no name, but merely apprised the 
jury, that such a character might be brought to impose upon them. When 
Mr. St. Leger came upon the table,* and took the testament in his hand, 
the plaintiff's counsel, in a tone of affected respect, addressed him, saying, 
" Oh, Mr. St. Leger, the jury will, I am sure, believe you without the cer- 
emony of swearing you ; you are a man of honour, and of high moral prin- 
ciple ; your character will justify us from insisting on your oath." The 
witness, deceived by this mild and complimentarydanguage, replied with 
mingled surprise and irritation, " I am happy, sir, to see you have changed 
the opinion you entertained of me when you were describing me awhile 
ago." "What, sir! then you confess it was a description of yourself ! 
Gentlemen, act as you please, but I leave it to you to say whether a thou- 
sand oaths could bind the conscience of such a man as I have just described.'* 

* It may be requisite to inform the English reader, that in the Trish courts there is no box 
for the witnesses. They are examined ui)oni the table that stands on the floor of the Court, 
betweea the bar and the bench. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 77 

an apology would, in the eyes of his countrymen, have tarnished 
the lustre of his recent victory, and that it might have the effect of 
inviting future challenges whenever he should perform his duty 
with the necessary boldness, he deemed it more eligible to risk his 
life than his reputation. A duel accordingly followed ; upon I 
which occasion Mr. Curran not only established for himself a char j 
acter for personal intrepidity (an acquisition of no small moment ]• 
in a country where the point of honour has always been so sacred- ■ 
ly observed), but afforded infinite entertainment to the by-stand- 
ers, by a series of those sportive sallies, which, when the impulse 
was on him, no time or place could repress.* He declined return- 
ing Mr. St. Leger's fire : so that the affair, after a single shot, was 
terminated. 

A more solemn and interestiog scene soon followed. The poor 
priest was shortly after called away to another world. When he 
found that the hour of death was at hand, he earnestly requested 
that his counsel, to whom he had something of importance to com- 
municate, might be brought into his presence. Mr. Curran com- 
plied, and was conducted to the bed-side of his expiring client. 
The humble servant of God had neither gold nor silver to bestow ; 
but what he had, and what with him was above all price, he gave, 
the blessing of a dying Christian upon him who had employed his 
talents, and risked his life, in redressing the wrongs of the minister 
of a proscribed religion. He caused himself to be raised for the 
last time from his pillow, and, placing his hands on the head of 
his young advocate, pronounced over him the formal benediction of 
the Roman catholic church, as the reward of his eloquence and 
intrepidity. Mr. Curran had also the satisfaction of being assured 
by the lower orders of his countrymen, that he might now fight as 
many duels as he pleased, without apprehending any danger to his 
person. An assurance, which subsequently became a prophecy, as 
far as the event could render it one. 

* When each had taken his ground, Mr. St. Leger called out to his ad- 
versary to fire : '' No, sir," replied he, "I am here by your invitation, and 
you must open the ball." 

A little after, Mr. Curran, observing the other's pistol to be aimed wide 
of its mark, called out in a loud voice, " Fire !'' St. Leger, who was a ner- 
vous man, started, and fired : and having died not long after, was reputed 
in Munster to have been killed by the report of his own pistol. 



78 i^IFE OF CURRAN. 

Shortly f»i'ter this Irinl, the successful orator was given to under- 
stand th:it his hue triumph should cost him dear. As he was stand- 
ing amidst a circle of his friends in one of the public streets of Cork, 
he ^as called aside by a person who brought him an intimation from 
Lord Doneraile, that in consequence of his late unprecedented con- 
duct, he might expect never to be employed in future in any cause, 
where his lordship, or his extensive connexions, should have the 
power to exclude him. The young barrister answered with con- 
temptuous playfulness, and in a voice to be overheard by every one ; 
" My good sir, you may tell his lordship, that it is vain for him to be 
f>roposing terms of accommodation ; for after what has happened, 1 
protest I think, while I live, I shall never hold a brief for him or 
©ne of his family." The introduction of these particulars may al- 
most demand an apology : yet it is often by little things that the 
characters of times and individuals are best displayed, as (accord- 
ing to an eminent English writer) " throwing up little straws best 
shows which way the wind lies." 

Previous to this trial, Mr. Curran's fame, and practice, had been 
unusual for his standing ; but after his display of eloquence and con- 
duct upon this occasion, they increased with unprecedented rapidity. 
It w^as probably too with this event that originated his great popu- 
larity among the lower orders of the Irish, a feeling which a little 
time matured into an abounded veneration for his capacity, com- 
bined with a most devoted attachment to his person. Their enthu- 
siasm in this instance can be scarcely conceived by such as have 
only witnessed the common marks of respect paid to ordinary fa- 
vourites of the people. So much of his life, and so many of its 
proudest moments wxre passed in their presence, in the courts of 
Dublin, and on the circuit towns ; his manners were so unaffectedly 
familiar and accessible, his genius and habits were so purely na- 
tional, that the humblest of his countrymen, forgetting the difference 
of rank in their many common sympathies, fondly considered him 
as one of themselves, and cherished his reputation not more as a 
debt of gratitude to him, than as a kind of peculiar triumph of their 
-own. These sentiments, which he never descended to any artifices 
to cultivate, continued unimpaired to his death, and will probably 
survive him manv years. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 79 

In relating the steps by which Mr. Curran advanced to profes- 
sional distinction, it would be an injustice to omit the support which 
he found in the friendship of the late learned and respected Lord 
Avonmore, then Mr. Yelverton, a leading counsel at the Irish bar. 
This excellent and rarely gifted man had himself risen from an hum- 
ble station, and knowing, by experience, " how hard it is to climb," 
was ever most prompt in encouraging and assisting those whom he 
saw imitating his own honourable example. His friendship for Mr. 
Curran commenced in 1775 (through the father-in-law of the latter, 
Dr. Creagh, between whom and Mr. Yelverton an old and tender 
intimacy had subsisted) ; and, with the exception of a few intervals 
of temporary alienation from political differences, continued unim- 
paired to his death. 

In one of Mr. Curran's latest efforts at the bar,* we find him 
fondly turning aside for a moment to indulge his respect for the 
judge and the scholar, and his gratitude to the friend of his younger 
years. The following is the character that he has drawn of Lord 
Avonmore. To strangers it may appear overwrought, but those 
who were familiar with the simple antique grandeur of mind that 
dignified the original, recognise the fidelity of the likeness. 

*' I am not ignorant that this extraordinary construction has re- 
ceived the sanction of another court, nor of the surprise and dismay 
with which it smote upon the g(?heral heart of the bar. I am aware 
that 1 may have the mortification of being told in another country of 
that unhappy decision, and I forsee in what confusion I shall hang 
down my head when I am told it. But I cherish, too, the consolatory 
hope, that I shall be able to tell them, that I had an old and learned 
friend, whom I would put above all the sweepings of their Hall, 
who was of a different opinion— who had derived his ideas of civil 
liberty from the purest fountains of Athens and of Rome— who had 
fed the youthful vigour of his studious mind with the theoretic 
knowledge of their wisest philosophers and statesmen— and who 
had refined that theory into the quick and exquisite sensibility of 
moral mstinct, by contemplating the practice of their most illustri- 
ous examples— by dwelling on the sweet-souled piety of Cimon— • 

* Speech in the case of Mr. Justice Johnson, in the Court of Exchequer, 
where Lord Avonmore presided. 



LIFE or CURRAN. 

oa the anticipated clu-istianity of Socrates-on the gallant and pa- 
thetic patriotism of Epaminondas-on that pnre austerity of Fabri- 
ciu» whom to move from his integrity would have been more diffi- 
cult than to have pushed the sun from his course. I would add, that 
if he had seemed to hesitate, it was but for a moment-that his hesi- 
tation was like the passing cloud that floats across the mornmg sun, 
and hides it from the view, and does so for a moment hide .t, by in- 
volving the spectator without even approaching the fare of the 

luminary. . r 

Lord Avonmore was the person under whose auspices was form- 
ed in the year 1779, a patriotic and convivial society; "The 
Monks of the Order of St. Patrick,"* which was in those days 
sufficiently celebrated, and composed of men such as Ireland could 
not easily assemble now. It was a collection of the wit, the 
genius and public virtue of the country, and though the name of 
the «ociety itself is not embodied in any of the national records, 
the names of many of its members are to be found in every page, 
an-d will be remembered, while Ireland has a memory, with grati- 
tude and pride. The primary object of their association was to 
give her a constitution, and to nourish and diffiise among her peo- 
ple the spirit and intelligence which should render them worthy of 

* nrihU snrletv SO interesting as connected with the most splendid era 
oflre^irfs hXx; Mr- Hudson^'has kindly supplied the following notice 

''"ThL^ «lta"dtd "/was'pkrtly political and partly convivial ; it con- 
Msled of t vo pans, professed and lay brothers. As the latter bad no pr.v- 
ileles except that of commons in the refectory, they are unnoticed here, 
■rfe mofes^ed (by the constitution)consisted of members of either house of 
Ihe P'^-f^^^V-lrristers with Ihe addition from the other learned profes- 
^"roT^^'ltTfoTSing one third of the whole. They assem 
bled every Saturday in Convent, during term-time ; and commonly held a 
chante before commons, at which the abbot presided or in his (very rare) 
absence the prior, or senior of the ofScers present. Upon such occasions, 
:U the membe'^s appeared in the habit of the -d-, a backabinet domino- 
Tpmnprance and sobrety always prevailed. A short Latin grace, r»ene 

dkrufb'ne'd^ca^^ "'L'fllSmonf "^ 

pronounced by the praecentor or chaplain, before and after commons. ^ 
n wm beseen by the following list, that there were many learned men 
and men of , cuius in their number, and I may venture to f J, that few pro- 
duction.* (either in pamphlets or periodical publications) of any celebuty, 
STthe arduous sruggle for Irish emancipation appeared, which did 
tTpfoceed ^oin the pen of one of the brethren. Nor did they forego their 

* Since adopted as the grace ofi^^ King'? Inns Societv, inDublio. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. gj 

the gift ; and when the day arrived, as it shortly did, when the 
rights to which they aspired were not to be gained without a strug- 

labours, till by their prayers and exertions they attained emancipation for 
their country. The sad change which has taken place since their dispersion 
need not be related. 



THE 

MOKKS OF THE ORDER OF ST. PATRICK^ 

COMMONLY CALLED 

THE MONKS OF THE SCREW- 

Assemhled at their Convent in St. Kevin-street^ Dublin, on and after 
September the 3dy 1779. 

J^ embers Names. 

1. Founder. Barry Yelverton, Barrister, M. P. since Lord Viscount Avon- 
more, Lord Chief Baron. 

2. Abbot. William Doyle, Barrister,^aster in chancery. 

3 Prior. John Fhilpot Curran, Barrister, since M. P. Privy Counsellor, 
and Master of the Rolls. 

4. Pr(Bcentor. Rev. Wm. Day, S. F. T. C. D. 

5. Bursar. Edward Hudson, M. D.* 

6. Sacristan. Robt. Johnson, Barr. M. P. and since a Judge.* 

7. Arran, the Earl of. 

8 Barry, James, (painter), elected an honorary member, never joined. 

9. Brown, Arthur, Barr, M. P. and F. T. C. D. 

10. Burgh, Walter Hussey, Barr. Rt. Hon. and M. P. and since Chief 
Baron. 

11. Burston, Beresford, Barr. and K. C. * 

12. Carhampton, Earl of. 

13. Caldbeck, William, Barr. and K. C. 

14. Chamberlayne. W. Tankerville, Barr. M. P and since a Judge. 

15. Charlemont, Earl of. 

16. Corry, Rt. Hon. Isaac, M. P. and since Chancellor of the Exchequer 

17. Daly, Rt. Hon. Denis, M. P. 

18. Day, Robert, Barr- M. P. and since a Judge.* 

19. Dodds, Robert, Barr. 

20. Doyle, John, M. P. and since a General in the army, and Bart.* 

21 . Dunkin, James, Barr. 

22. Duquery, Henry, Barr- and M. P, 

23. Emmet, Temple, Barr. 

24. Finucane, Matthew, Barr. and since a Judge. 

25. Fitton, Richard, Barr. 

26. Forbes, John, Barr. M. P. 

* Sorrivln^, 

u 



83 tIFE OF CURRAN. 

gle, the leading members of the " Order of St. Patrick'' may be 
seen conspicuous in the post of honour and of danger, Mr. Curran 

27. Frankland, Richard, Barr. and K. C. 

28. Grattan, Rt. Hon. Henry, Barr. and M. P. 

29. Hacket, Thomas, Barr. 

30. Hardy, Francis, Barr. and M. P. (Lord Charlemonfs biographer.) 

31. Harstonge, Sir Henry, Bart, and M. P. 

32. Herbert, Richard, Barr. and M. P. 

33. Hunt, John, Barr. 

34. Hussey, Dudley, Barr. M. P. and recorder of Dublin. 

35. Jebb, Frederic, M. D. 

36. Kingsborough, Lord Viscount, M. P. 

37. Mocawen, Barr. 

28. Martin, Richard, Barr. and M. P. 

39. Melge, Peter, Barr. M. P. and since a Judge. 

40. Mornington, Earl of. 

41. Muloch, Thomas, Barr- 

42. Nevvenham, Sir Edward, M. P. 

43. Ogle, Rt. Hon.George, M. P. 

44. O'Leary, Rev. Arthur, honorary. 

45. O^Neal, Charles. Barr. K. C. and M. P. 

46. Palliser, the Rev. Doctor, Chaplain. 

47. Pollock, Joseph, Barr. 

48. Ponsonby, Rt. Hon. George, Barr. M. P. and since Chancellor of 
Irelandi 

49. Preston, William, Barr. 

60. Ross, Lieut. Col. M. P. 

61. Sheridan, Charles Francis,Barr. M. P. and Secretary at War. 

52. Smith, Sir Michael, Bart. Barr. M. P. and since Master of the Rolls. 

63. Stawel, William, Barr. 

64. Stack, Rev. Richard, F. T. C. D. 
55. Townshend, Marquis of* 

66. Woolfe, Arthur, Barr. M.. P. and since Lord Viscount Kilwarden, 
Chief Justice Kiiig's-Bench. 

The society dvv'indled away towards the end of the year 1795. 

Shortly after the formation of this club, Mr. Curran, having been one eve- 
ning called upon for a song, gave one of his own composition, which was 
immediately adopted as tlie charier song of the order. The following are 
all the verses of it that have been recollected. 

When St. Patrick this order established. 

He called us the "Monks of the Screw ; " 
Good rules be revtjaled to our Abbot 

To guide us in what we should do^ 
But first he replenished our fountaia 

With liquor, the best in the sky; 
And he swore, on the word of a saint, 

That the fountain should never ru« dry. 

Each year, when your octaves approach. 

In full chapter convened let me find you ; 
And, when to the convent you <:ome, 

Leave your fav'rite temptation behind you. 

* Elected, professed, and joined on his visit to Dublin, after his vice royalty. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 83 

always bore a distinguished part in their meetings; it was to them, 
and to the many happy and instructive hours he had passed there, 
that he so pathetically alluded in the fine burst of social enthusiasm 
which immediately follows the passage above cited. " And this 
soothing hope I draw from the dearest and tenderest recollections 
of my life — from the remembrance of those attic nights, and 
those refections of the gods, which we have spent with those ad- 
mired, and respected, and beloved companions, who have gone be- 
fore us ; over whose ashes the most precious tears of Ireland have 
been shed. [Here Lord Avonmore could not refrain from bursting 
into tears.] Yes, my good lord, I see you do not forget them. I 
see their sacred forms passing in sad review before your memory, 
I see your pained and softened fancy recalling those happy meet- 
ings, where the innocent enjoyment of social mirth became ex- 
panded into the nobler warmth of social virtue, and the horizon of 
the board became enlarged into the horizon of man — where the 
swelling heart conceived and communicated the pure and gene- 
rous purpose — where my slenderer and younger taper imbibed its 
borrowed light from the more matured and redundant fountain of 

And be not a glass in your convent. 

Unless on a festival, found ; 
And, this rule to enforce, I ordain it 

One festival all the year round. 

My brethren, be chaste, till youVe tempted^* 

Whilst sober, be grave and discreet ; / 

And humble your bodies with fasting, 

As oft as j^on've nothing to eat. 
Yet, in honour of fasting, one lean face 

Among you I'll always require ; 
If the Abbot should please, he may wear it, 

If not, let it come to the Prior*. 
****** 

Come, let each take his chalice, my brethreir 

And with due devotion prepare, 
With hands and with voices uplifted 

Our hymn to conclude with a prayer. 
Way this chapter oft joyously meet, 

And this gladsome libation renew, 
To the Saint, and the Founder, and Abbot, 

And Prior, and Monks of the Screw I 



• Mr. Doj'c, <be Abbot. h»d a retnarkablr larfe ftsll far« : M-. Carran'.« tv»-« tire v^ry rfe-. 
Terse. 



34 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

yours. Yes, my lord, we can remember tliose nights wilhout any 
other regret than that they can never more return, for 

** We spent them not in toys, or lust, or wine, 
But search of deep philosophy, 
Wit, eloquence, and poesy, 
Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine."* 

CoWLEV. 

Lord Avonmore was one of those men in whom a rare intellect 
and vast acquirements are found united with the most artless unsus- 
pecting innocency of nature. Whatever the person in whom he 
confided asserted, he considered to be as undoubted as if he had 
uttered it himself. His younger friend, aware of this amiable im- 
perfection, used often to trifle with it, and, in moments of playful 
relaxation, to practise harmless impositions upon his lordship's 
credulity. His ordinary artifice was to touch his sensibility, and 
thus excite his attention by relating in his presence some affecting 
incident, and then, pretending to be unconscious that his lordship 
was listening, to proceed with a detail of many strange and im- 
probable particulars, until he should be interrupted, as he regularly 
was, by the good judge's exclaiming, " Gracious heavens ! sir, is it 
possible ? I have overheard ail those most truly amazing circum- 
stances, v^hich I could never have believed, if they did not come 
from such good authority." His lordship at length discovered the 
deception, and passing into the opposite extreme, became (often lu- 
dicrously) wary and incredulous as to every thing that ^Ir. Curran 
stated. Still, however, the latter persisted, and, quickening his in- 
vention as the difficulties increased, continued from year to year to 
gain many a humorous triumph over all the defensive caution of his 
friend. Even upon the bench. Lord Avonmore evinced the same 
superstitious apprehension of the advocate's ingenuity, whom he 

* Lord Avonmore, in whose breast political resentment was easily subdu- 
ed, by the same noble tenderness of feeling which distinguished the late Mr. 
Fox upon a more celebrated occasion, could not withstand this appeal to 
his heart. At this period (1804) there was a suspension of intercourse be- 
tween him and Mr. Curran ; but the moment the court rose, his Lordship sent 
for his friend, and threw himself into his arms, declaring that unworthy arti- 
fices had been used to separate them, and that they should never succeed in 
iuture. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 85 

would frequently interrupt, sometimes in a tone of endearment, 
sometimes of impatience, saying, " Mr. Curran, I know your clev- 
erness ; but it's quite in vain for you to go on. I see the drift of it 
all, and you are only giving yourself and me unnecessary trouble." 
Upon one of these occasions, the judge having frequently interpo- 
sed to prevent the counsel's putting forward some topic that was 
really relative and necessary to his case, declaring, as often as it 
was attempted, that the tendency of his argument was quite obvi- 
ous, and that he was totally straying from the question, Mr. Curran 
addressed him thus : '' Perhaps, my lord, I am straying ; but you 
must impute it to the extreme agitation of my mind. 1 have just 
witnessed so dreadful a circumstance, that my imagination has 
not yet recovered from the shock." His lordship was now all atten- 
tion. — " On my way to court, my lord, as I passed by one of the 
markets, I observed a butcher proceeding to slaughter a calf. Just 
as his hand was raised, a lovely little child approached him unper- 
ceived, and, terrible to relate — I still see the life-bloed gushing out, 
the poor child's bosom was under his hand, when he plunged his 

knife into — into" " Into the bosom of the child !" cried out the 

judge, with much emotion — " Into the neck of the calf my lord ; but 
your lordship sometimes anticipates." 

There are no reports of Mr. Curran's early speeches at the bar ; 
but the celerity of his ascent to distinction in his profession, and in 
the public estimation, may be inferred from the date of his en- 
trance into parliament. He had been only seven years at the bar, 
when Mr. Longfield (afterwards Lord Longueville) had him return- 
ed for a borough in his disposal.* At this time boroughs were the 
subject of notorious traffic, and it seldom happened that the mem- 
bers returned for them did not bind themselves to remunerate the 
patrons in money or in services. There was no such stipulation in 
the present instance : the seat was given to Mr. Curran upon the 
express condition of perfect freedom on his part ; but having soon 
differed from Mr. Longfield on political subjects, and there being 

* The borough of Kilbeggan, for which the other member was the cele» 
brated Mr. Flood. It was also about this period that Mr. Curran obtained 
a silk goTvri. 



gg LIFE OF CURRAN. 

then no way of vacating, he insisted upon purchasing a seat, to be 
filled by any person whom that gentleman should appoint ; an ar- 
rangement against which, it is but justice to add, that Mr. Long- 
field anxiously endeavoured to dissuade him.* 

* In the succeeding parliament Mr. Curran also came in, at his own ex- 
pense, for the borough of Rathcormack. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 87 



CHAPTER V. 

The Irish House of Commons in 1783 — Sketch of the previous history of 
Ireland — Effects of the revolution of 1688 — Catholic penal code—System 
of governing Ireland— Described by Mr. Curran — Intolerance and degra- 
dation of the Irish parliament— Change of system Octennial bill — 

American revolution — Its effects upon Ireland — The Irish volunteers — 
Described by Mr. Curran — Their numbers, and influence upon public 
measures — Irish revolution of 1782— Mr. Grattan's public services— Ob- 
servations upon the subsequent conduct of the Irish parliament. 

It was at the eventful era of 1783, that Mr. Curran became a 
member of the Irish House of Commons, an assembly at that day 
thronged with groups of original historic characters,* the vigorous 

* Of some of these, Mr. Grattan (in his answer to Lord Clare's pamphlet, 
1801) has given the following masterly sketches, over which he has, per- 
haps unconsciously, distributed the noble traits, which if collected, would 
form the portrait of himself. 

*' I follow the author through the graves of these honourable dead men, 
for most of them are so, and I beg to raise up their tombstones as he throws 
them down ; I feel.it more instructive to converse with theirashes than with 
his compositions. 

" Mr. Malone,* one of the characters of 1753, was a man of the finest in- 
tellect that any country ever produced. * The three ablest men I have ever 
heard were Mr. Pitt (the father), Mr. Murray, and Mr. Malone. For a pop- 
ular assembly I would choose Mr. Pitt ; for a privy council, Murray ; for 
twelve wise men, Malone.' This was the opinion which Lord Sackviile, the 
secretary of 1753, gave to a gentleman from whom I heard it. ' He is a 
great sea in the calm,' said Mr. Gerrard Hamilton, another great judge of 
men and talents : ' Ay,' it was replied, * but had you seen him when hfi 
was young, you would have said he was a great sea in a storm.' And like 
the sea, whether in calm or storm, he was a great production of nature. 

" Lord Pery.— He is not yet canonized by death ; but he, like the rest, 
has been canonized by slander. He was more or less a party in all those 
measures which the pamphlet condemns, and indeed in every great statute 
and measure that took place in Ireland for the last fifty years. A man of the 
most legislative capacity I ever knew, and the most comprehensive reach 
of understanding I ever saw ; with a deep engraven impression of public 
care, accompanied by a temper which was adamant. In his train is every 
private virtue that can adorn human nature. 

" Mr. Brownlow ; Sir William Osborne. I wish we had more of these 
criminals. The former seconded the address of 1782, and in the latter, and 
in both, there was a station of mind that would have become the proudest 
senate in Europe. 

*' Mr. Flood ; my rival, as the pamphlet calls him : and I should be un- 
worthy the character of his rival, if in his grave I did not do him justice. — 
He had his faults ; but he had great powers, great public effect ; he per- 

» Mr. Malone was no more in 1733, but his portrait is preserved, that the group might not 
be disturbed 



g8 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

product of unsettled times ; greatpublic benefactors, great public de- 
Jinquenls, but both of rare capacity and enterprise, and exhibiting 
in their virtues or their crimes all the turbulent energy of the storms 
that were agitating their country. The Irish revolution of 1782, 
with the memorable acts and deliberations of which period the poli- 
tical history of Ireland commences, had just taken place; and al- 
though it preceded by a little time Mr. Curran's entrance into par- 
liament, it still cannot but be adverted to as an event which had a 
powerful influence upon the fortune and conduct of his future life. 
He was of too ardent a temper not to be deeply moved by the cir- 
cumstances which accompanied that measure : he was the familiar 
friend of the eminent parliamentary leaders who had been so in- 
strumental in achieving it ; he had witnessed the virtuous struggles 
and the scenes of civic heroism displayed by them and by the na- 
tion at this arduous crisis ; and the impression that they made upon 

suaded the old, he inspired the young ; the Castle vanished before him. On 
a small subject he was miserable ; put into his hand a distaff, and, like Her- 
cules, he made sad work of it : but give him the thunderbolt, and he had the 
arm of a Jupiter. He misjudged when he transferred himself to the Eng- 
lish parliament ; he forgot that he was a tree of the forest, too old and too 
great to be transplanted at fifty ; and his fate in the British parliament is 
a caution to the friends of union to stay at home, and make the country of 
their birth the seat of their action. ^ , 

" Mr. Burgh ; Another great person in those scenes which it is not in the 
little quill of this author to depreciate. He was a maa singularly gifted, with 
great talent, great variety— wit, oratory, and logic. He too had his weak- 
ness ; but he had the pride of genius al^o, and strove to raise his country 
along with himself, and never sought to build his elevation on the degrada- 
tion of Ireland. 

" I moved an amendment for a free export ; he moved a better amend- 
ment, and he lost his place. 1 moved a declaration of rights ; * With my 
last breath will I support the right of the Irish parliament,' was his note to 
me when 1 applied to him for his support ; he lost the chance of recover- 
ing his place and his way to the seals, for which he might have bartered. 
The gates of promotion were shut on him as those of glory opened. 

" Mr. Daly ; my beloved friend. He in a great measure drew the address of 
1779, in favour of our trade, that '►ungracious measure ;' and he saw, read, 
§nd approved of the address of 1782 in favour of our constitution, that ' ad- 
tiress of separation.' He visited me in my illness at that moment, and 1 
liad communication on those sutjects with that man whose powers of oratory 
were next to perfection, and whose powers of understanding 1 might say, 
from what has lately happened, bordered on the spirit of prophecy. 

" Mr. Forbes; A name I shall ever regard, and a death I shall ever de« 
plore. Enlightened, sensible, laborious, and useful ; proud in poverty,, 
and patriotic : he preferred exile to apostacy, and met his death. I speak 
of the dead — I say nothing of the living ; but thkt 1 attribute to this constel- 
Julion of great men, in a great measure, the privileges of your country ; and 
I attribute such a generation of men to the residence of your parliament." 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 89 

his imagination and his conviction was never after effaced. In 
order therefore fully to comprehend the feelings with which he en- 
tered upon his duties as an Irish senator, it will be necessary to 
make a few observations upon the condition in which he found his 
country, and upon that from which she had recently emerged. The 
fervour of his political opinions, and his devoted adherence to the 
popular cause, exposed him at different periods of his life to no lit- 
tle calumny and reproach ; but those who impartially consider the 
past and cotemporary history of Ireland will find in every page of it, 
his excuse, if not his most ample justification. 

For centuries Ireland had been in a state of miserable bondage ; 
her history is but the disgusting catalogue of her sufferings, ex- 
citing to unprofitable retaliation, from which she regularly sunk, 
subdued but untranquilized, into a condition of more embittered 
wretchedness,* with the penalties of rebellion superadded to the 
calamities of oppression. From the period of her annexation to 
England in the 12th century, down to the close of the 1.7th, she had 
thus continued, barbarous and restless ; too feeble and disunited to 
succeed, too strong, and proud, and irritated to despair; alternating 
in dreary succession between wild exertions of delirious strength and 
the troubled sleep of exhausted fury. It would be foreign to the 
present purpose to enter into the merits of these melancholy con- 
flicts ; to grope amidst uninteresting records, to ascertain whether 
Ireland as an unruly province deserved her fate, or whether her 
condition was attributable to an inveterate spirit of vindictive do- 
mination in the English governments. But as we approach more 
modern times, all obscurity on the subject ceases : we find the ruling 
country adopted a formal avowed design of humiliation, which, 
however applauded (as it still continues to be by some) under the 
imposing phrase of the " wisdom of our ancestors," was, in reality, 
founded in much injustice, and if effects be any test, in as much 
folly ; and after agitating and afflicting the kingdom for the last cen- 
tury, seems likely to visit in its consequences the next. 

* " The slave, that struggles without breaking his chain, provokes the 
tyrant to double it, and gives him the plea of self-defence for extinguishing 
what at first he only intended to subdue." Mr. Curran's speecii m liowi- 
^n's cas&. 



^ 



go LIFE OF CURRAiY. 

It was immediately after the revoluiion of 1688, that era of glory 
and freedom to England, that Ireland became the victim of this sys- 
tematic plan of debasement. Her adherence to the deposed mon- 
arch and its result are familiar to all. James's party having been 
crushed, Ireland was treated as a conquered country, that merited 
nothing but chastisement and scorn. This was not the polic.v of 
the English king ; it was that of the English whigs,* the framers of 
the Bill of Rights, the boasted champions of liberty at home. By 
these men, and by their successors (v/ho, of whatever political de- 
nomination, agreed with them in their intolerance,) was Ireland, 
"without shame or pity, dismanded of her most precious rights. 
Laws were made to bind her, without consulting the Irish parlia- 
ment, which, when it remonstrated, was charged with riot and se- 
dition.t Ireland's commerce was openly discouraged : a code 
more furious than bigotry had hitherto penned was levelled against 
the mass of the nation, the Roman Catholics.J They were suc- 
cessively escluSed from the right to sit in parliament, to acquire 
land, to hold any employment under the crown, to vote in elections 
of members of parliament, to intermarry with protestants, to ex.er- 

* " I am sorry to reflect that since the late revolution in these kingdoms, 
when the subjects of England have more strenuously than ever asserted their 
own rights and Ibe liberty of parliaments, it has pleased them to bear harder 
on their poor reig'ubours than h&s ever yet been done in many ages forego- 
ing.''—Molj;iev/x''s Cause oflrelar-d. 

This little volume, written throughout with a modesty and ability worthy 
of the friend of Locke, was formally censured by the English House of 
Commons. A circumfjtp.nce that preceded its publication is not without 
interest. The author, apprehensive of any unconscious bias upon his mind, 
wrote to his iiiend for his opinion of some of the arguments ; Locke replied 
by inviting him to pass over to England, and confer with him in person 
upon the subject. Molyneux complied, and after spending, as the account 
states, and as may be well believed, the five most delightful weeks of his 
life in the society of his illustrious friend, returned to Dublin and published 
his work. 

t When the Irish commons in 1792 claimed the right of originating money 
bills, they were told by the viceroy. Lord .Sydney, that " They might go 
to England and beg their majesties' pardon Tor their riotous and seditious 
assemblies.'* 

j •* You abhorred it, as I did, for its vicious perfection ; for I must do it 
justice, it was a complete syatem, full of coherence and consistency, well 
digested and well composed in all its parts. It was a machine of wise and 
elaborate co)itrivance, and as well litted for the oppression, impoverishment, 
and degradation of a peoj)]e, and the debasement m them of human nature 
itself, as ever proceeded from the, perverted ingenuity of man." — Burke'^s 
L(;tter to Sir H, Jadngrishe, 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 9J 

sise religious worship ; in short, by a kind of constructive annihila- 
tion, " the laws did not presume a papist to exist in the kingdom, 
nor could they breathe without the connivance of government."* 

This slate of national humiliation lasted almost a century. Vice- 
roy succeeded viceroy with no other rule of government than to 
eontinue the system as he found it. A race of subordinate minis- 
ters sprang up within the land, of no public virtue, no expanded 
thought, utterly unconscious that man can be improved; exhibiting 
in their heartless measures that practical ferocity for which jailors 
or keepers would be selected, rather than, those mild and sanative 
qualities that might have soothed the distempers of the times*- 
" Hence it is," said Mr. Curran, speaking of this period, *• that the 
administration of Ireland so often presents to the reader of her his- 
tory, not the view of legitimate government, but rather of an en- 
campment in the country of a barbarous enemy, where the object of 
an invader is not government but conquest ; where he is of course 
obliged to resort to the corrupting of clans, or of single individuals, 
pointed out to his notice by public abhorrence, and recommended 
to his confidence only by a treachery so rank and consummate as 
precludes all possibility of their return to private virtue or to pub- 
lic reliance, and therefore only put into authority over a wretched 
cfountry, condemned to the torture of all that petulant unfeeling as- 
perity with which a narrow and malignant mind will bristle in un- 
merited elevation ; condemned to be betrayed, and disgraced, and 
exhausted by the little traitors that have been suffered to nestle and 
grow within it ; who make it at once the source of their grandeur 
and the victim of their vices ; reducing it to the melancholy necessi- 
ty of supporting their consequence and of sinking under their 
crimes, like the lion perishing by the poison of a reptile that finds 
shelter in the mane of the noble animal, while it is stinging him to 
death"! 

Ireland was in those times in as strange and disastrous a situation 
as can well be imagined ; her own legislature hating and trampling 
upon her people, and the English government suspecting and des* 

* Such was the declaration from the bench of the Irish chancellor in 1759. 
t Mr. Curran's speech in Howison's case. 



92* LirE OF CURRA.^\ 

pising both. There may have been suflicient inlricacy la the mi- 
nor details of the policy of the time,*but the leading maxims appear 
in all the clearness of despotic simplicity. They were to awe the 
real or imputed disaffection of the natives by means of a harsh do- 
mestic administration, and to check any more general exercise of 
power assumed by that administration as an intrusion upon the le- 
gislative supremacy of England. As far as respected internal con- 
cerns, the Irish lords and commons were a triumphant faction, des- 
poiling and insulting the remain? of a fallen enemy : in their relation 
with England they were miserable instruments, v/ithout confidence 
or dignity ; armed by their employers with the fullest authority to 
molest or to crushj but instantly and contemptuously reminded of 
their own degradation, if ever they evinced any presumptuous desire 
to redress. 

Against so unnatural a system, it is no wonder that the discounte- 
nanced claims of freedom should have no avail. If a transient 
scream was heard among the people, it excited immediate alarm at 
home, as ominous of an approaching storm ;* if her voice issued, as 
it sometimes did, from the Irish commons, it was considered a daring 
invasion of the rights of a higher power.t If the spirit of that house 
became too unruly for provincial purposes, the patriotic murmur 
was quickly hushed by lengthening the pension list ; a given num- 
ber of oppressors was required, and while a venal heart was to be 
had in the market, no matter how high the price, the price was paid, 
and the nation called on (in addition to its other burdens) to defray 
the expenses of its own wrongs. 

Thus it continued for many years ; with all the miseries of des- 
potism without its repose; commerce extinguished, the public 
spirit broken, public honour and private confidence banished, and 
bigotry and faction alone triumphant. 

* Upon the trial of the printer of Swift's celebrated Letters of a Dra- 
pier, the lord chief-justice, Wbitshed, declared that the author's intention 
was to bring in the Pretender. — Plowden^s History of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 81. 

Dr. Lucas, who ventured in his writings to vindicate the rights of the 
Irish commons, was declared by that house an enemy to his country, and 
obliged to seek for safety in exile, 1747. 

% Vide question of the appropriation of the surplus, in 1753.- 



LITE OF CURRAIS. ^ 

Sentiments of wisdom and pity at length occuiTed to the English 
cabinet : it began to doubt if the Irish people were so incurably 
furious as their tormentors had represented; it resolved to inquire, 
and if necessary, to redress. A very little investigation proved 
that never was some merciful interposition more opportune ; it was 
like a visit to some secret cell to rescue the victims of imputed 
frenzy from their inhuman immurers, who had chained their persons 
and traduced their intellects, that they might prey upon their in- 
heritance. 

The subject of the first healing measure was the parliament. 
There was no representation of the people in Ireland : there was a 
house of commons, which, having no limits to its duration, had be- 
come a banditti of perpetual dictators.* The octennial bill was 
passed, and the hardened veterans disbanded.! This was not for 
the purpose of making even a nominal appeal to the sense of the 
nation ; it was to give the crown an opportunity of dispersing that 
provincial oligarchy whose maxims had been so ruinous to tlieir 
country, and of substituting in their place a class of more pliant 
dependants, who might readily accord with the purposed lenity of 
the new system. As a right, or a security for a right, which nothing 
can give a people if they give it not themselves, this act effected 
little. As a diminution of calamity, as a transfer from the barbarous 
dominion of their domestic tyrants to the more considerate and en- 
lightened control of the English ministry, it had its value. It was 
received by the nation, who have been ever as precipitate in their 
gratitude as in their resentments, with transports of enthusiastic and 
unaccustomed joy ; a signal proof, if such were wanting, of their 
loyalty and their debasement. 

The Irish house of commons, however, began nQ;!v to wear in 
some degree the appearance of a constitutional assembly ; notwith- 
standing the political ignominy into which the nation had fallen^ 
there still existed in that house a small band of able and upright 
men, who entertained more manly and charitable notions of a 
people's claims than their ungenerous opponents ; and who, though 

* And four-fifths of the people were excluded from the elective franchise 
by the 1st Geo. II. c. 9. 

1 1767, under the adnainistration of Lord Townshendl. 



94 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

they might not possess the power of redressing the immediate- 
wrongs, were still ever at hand to refute the baneful doctrines that 
would have sanctioned their continuance. In the British senate too 
(it should be gratefully remembered) Ireland had her advocates ; 
whose expanded minds, superior to the paltry ambition of domina- 
tion, would have made the noblest use of their own privileges, that 
of liberally imparting them. The consequences of these better 
opinions occasionally appeared ; the viceroy was defeated upon 
some constitutional questions ;* the commons were reprimanded 
and prorogued ; measures full of honour to them, and of hope to 
their country. 

But these were only transitory visitations of spirit ; the effects 
rather of the negligence than the weakness of the viceroy. The 
ranks of the opposition were soon thinned by the never failing ex- 
pedient, and whatever relief was meditated for the Irish, was to 
come in the form of a gift, and not a concession. Relief was cer- 
tainly in the contemplation of the English minister, (Lord North) 
to what extent it is now immaterial to inquire ; he was anticipated 
by events that were above his control. 

Ireland was now upon the eve of " a great original transaction.'* 
The American colonies had revolted ; the Irish linen trade with 
those provinces, which had been the principal of Ireland's few 
sources of commercial wealth, instantly vanished; to this was 
added a general embargo upon the exportation of provisions, lest 
they might circuitously reach the insurgents. Universal distress 
ensued. The commons, for the first time, assumed the attitude of 
representatives of the nation : they addressed the viceroy upon the 
}:iublic emergencies with dignity and firmness, and were dissolved 
in 1777. Strenuous measures were taken by the government to 
secure a majority in the parliament that followed; but the crisis 
soon arrived when the destinies of the country were transferred to 
other hands. 

The internal wretchedness of Ireland had been great; it was now 
aggravated by the dangers of war : the regular forces in the kingdom, 

* Among other instances of the increasins^ spirit of the house of commons, 
was their repeated rejections of money bills, because they did not take their 
rise in that lioitse. 1 769^ 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 95 

exceeded not 5,000 men, the remainder having been called off to 
recruit the army in America. The enemy's fleets, superior to that 
of Great Britain, were careering in triumph through the channel, 
and daily expected upon Ireland's unprotected coasts. In this 
emergency, the town of Belfast, having applied to government for 
a military reinforcement, and its requisition having been answered 
by an offer of supply that cannot be related with gravity,* had the 
honour of first raising that warning voice, which, hushing every 
baser murmur, awoke the nation to confidence and strength. She 
called upon her citizens to arm in their defence. A corps of volun- 
teers was immediately established. The noble example wag 
ardently followed by the country at large, and Ireland soon beheld 
starting up with a scenic rapidity, a self collected, self disciplined 
body of forty thousand volunteers. " You cannot but remember," 
said Mr. Curran, describing this scene, of which he had been a 
witness, " that at a time when we had scarcely a regular soldier for 
our defence, when the old and young were alarmed and terrified 
with apprehensions of descent upon our coasts, that Providence 
■ seemed to have worked a sort of miracle in our favour. You saw 
a band of armed men come forth at the great call of nature, of 
honour, and their country. You saw men of the greatest wealth and 
rank; you saw every class of the community give up its members, 
and send them armed into the field, to protect the public and private 
tranquillity of Ireland. It is impossible for any man to turn back to 
that period, without reviving those sentiments of tenderness and 
gratitude which then beat in the public bosom ; to recollect amidst 
what applause, what tears, what prayers, what benedictions, they 
•walked forth amongst spectators agitated by the mingled sensations 
of terror and of reliance, of danger and of protection, imploring the 
blessings of heaven upon their heads, and its conquest upon their 
swords. That illustrious, and adored, and abused body of men 
stood forward and assumed the title which I trust the ingratitude of 
their country will never blot from its history, ' The volunteers of 
Ireland."* 

* The answer of the government was, that all the assistance it could af- 
ford was half a troop of dismounted horse, and half a company of invalids, 
t Speech in Hamilton Rowan's case,. 



0g XIFE OF CUHRAN. 

The original object of these associations had been to defend the 
country from foreign invasion. The administration, forgetting Ihe 
loyalty of the proceeding in their affright at so unexpected an ex- 
hibition of strength and enterprise, beheld an enemy already in pos- 
session of the land, but affecting to countenance what they could 
not control, they supplied the volunteers with several thousand 
stands of arms, and looked to the return of more tranquil and servile 
times, to disarm and defame them. 

The volunteers soon swelled into an army of 80,000 men. In 
their ranks appeared the most admired characters in the kingdom, 
animating them with the enthusiasm, and tempering the general 
ardour by all the courtesy, and the high moral discipline, that the 
presence of so many noblemen, and senators, and gentlemen could 
inspire. They had armed to protect the crown—no invader ap- 
peared ; another and a more precious object of protection now 
remained. Ireland was at their disposal, and they unanimously 
determined that, to consummate their work, they should continue 
under arms until they saw her free. They resolved " to show, that 
if man descends, it is not in his Own proper motion ; that it is with 
labour and with pain, and that he can continue to sink only until by 
the force and pressure of the descent, the spring of his immortal 
faculties acquires that recuperative energy and effort, that hurries 

him as^many miles aloft."* 

The demands of the volunteers were altogether unlike a mere 
sudden ebullition of popular discontent. They were the result of 
deep convictions, the splendid signs of the improved opinions of 
the age. The example of America was before them, and the cry 
for redress in Ireland was but the echo of that " voice which shout- 
ed to liberty"! there. The mode of their constitution, too, was 
peculiarly fortunate and authoritative. They were not a regular 
Biilitary force, mutinously dictating measures to the state; they 
■were not a band of insurgents, illegal in their origin and objects. 
The circumstances of the times had invested the volunteers with a 
constitutional character. The government had recognised them, 
and aided their formation ; the House of Commons voted them a 

* Mr. Curran's speech in Finnerty's case. 
t An expression of Mr. Flood's. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 97 

formal declaration of thanks for their public services ; the people 
looked up to them with admiration and respect, as a brave, united, 
and zealous body, combining the intelligence and moderation of 
loyal citizens, with the influence and resources of a powerful army. 

The effects of the firmness and wisdom of their proceedings were 
«oon apparent. The demand of the nation for a free trade, and the 
memorable declaration in parliament, " that no pozver on earth, save 
the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, had a right to make laws 
forlreland,^^* were no longer disregarded. The case of America 
had just shown how a struggle for principle might terminate. — 
*f British supremacy had fallen there like a spent thunderbolt."t 
The bigotry, and servility, and disunion, which so long supported 
it in Ireland, had for the moment disappeared. Ireland declared, 
and England felt, that no other policy remained, *' but to do jus- 
tice to a people, who were otherwise determined to do justice to 
themselves."! The British ministry, w^hose infatuated counsels 
had lost America, and whose tardiness and insincerity with respect 
to Ireland had been encouraging the spirit of resistance there, were 
removed, and successors appointed with instructions to make such 
honourable concessions as were due to the services, the strength, 
and the just pretensions of the Irish people. The principal re- 
strictions upon the trade of Ireland had been previously taken off. 
Under the Marquis of Rockingham's administration, the great lead- 
ing grievance, that included in its principle so many more, was re- 
dressed. England resigned her legislative pretensions, and recog- 
nised Ireland to be Sifree nation.^ 

This signal event, so justly denominated by Mr. Burke the Irish 
revolution, was the work of the Irish volunteers. Their efforts were 
powerfully aided by the momentary spirit which they infused into 
the Irish House of Commons. In many of its members, the enthusi- 

* The words of Mr. Grattan's motion, April 19, 1780. 

t Mr. Grattao's speech, Nov. 13, 1781. 

J Mr. Grattan's speech, April 19, 1780. 

§ 1782.— Several important constitutional acts were passed in Ireland 
dining this short administration. A habeas corpus act, the repeal of the 
perpetual mutiny bill, the act for the independence of the fudges, an act in 
favour of the dissenting protestants. A slight relaxation ot the penal co(ie 
^ad taken place ip 1778. 

13 



^Q LIFE OF CURRAN. 

asm vanislied with the occasion ; but there remained a few, whose 
better natures, superior to the control of accident, continued to 
struggle fo* the public good with a constancy, ability, and zeal, 
which sprang from within themselves. Their merits have been 
long since recorded : the pre-eminent merits of their illustrious 
leader, now associated with the proudest recollections of his coun- 
try, require new attestation. For Mr. Grattan's most splendid 
panegyric, for the only one truly worthy of him, we are to look in 
what he has himself pronounced. His public exertions, the mon- 
uments of his genius and his worth, are preserved ; his historian will 
have but to collect and refer to them, jusdy confiding, that as long 
as eloquence, patriotism, intrepidity and uncompromising honour 
are valued in public men, the example of Mr. Grattan will remain 
the subject of lasting gratitude and praise.* 

The triumph which Ireland gained in the declaration of her inde- 
pendence was the triumph of a principle, which, however glorious 
it might have been to those w^ho achieved it, failed to confer upon 
the nation the benefit and repose that the political philanthropist 
fondly anticipated. The spirit of the parliament was exhausted in 
the single effort — they had eman^cipated themselves from the con- 
trol of another legislature ; but no sooner was the victory obtained, 

* Mr. Grattan, like other men of original genius and character, has been 
many times in the course of his memorabie c;ireer misrepresented and re- 
viled. The following spirited defence of him against such attacks was 
made in the Irish House of Commons, by his friend Mr. Peter Burroughs, a 
gentleman, who has been long distinguished for his eloquence in the senate, 
and at the bar, and for the unsuspected purity of his public and private life, 
" I cannot repress my indignation, at the audacious boldness of the calum- 
ny, which would asperse one of the most exalted characters which any na- 
tion ever produced ; and that in a country which owes its liberty, and its 
greatness, to the energy of his exertions, and in the very house which has 
Eo often been the theatre of his glorious labours, and splendid achievements. 
I remember that man the theme of universal panegyric — the wonder and the 
boast of Ireland, for his genius and his virtue. His name silenced the 
sceptic, upon the reality of gc^nuine patriotism. To doubt the purity of his 
motives was a heresy which no tongue dared to utter. Envy was lost in 
admiration ; and even those whose crimes he scourged, blended extorted 
conpraises with the murmurs of resentment. He covered our (i/ien) unfledged 
stitution with the ample wings of his talents, as an eagle covers her young; 
like her he soared, and like her could behold, the rays, whether of royal Fa- 
vour, or royal anger, with undazzled, unintimidated eye. If, according to 
Demosthenes, to grow with the growth, and decay with the decline of our 
country, be the true criterion of a good citizen, how infinitely did this man, 
even in the moment of his lowest depression, surpass those upstart patriots 
who only become visible when their country vanishes ! ' 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 99 

than it became evident that very few of its fruits were to be shared 
among the people. Great domestic abuses still prevailed ; the 
corrupt state of the legislature ;* its consequence, an enormous and 
increasing pension list ; and, above all, the exclusion of the Roman 
Catholics from the most valuable privileges of the constitution.' — 
There were many others of subordinate importance. From Mr. 
Curran's entrance into parliament, he joined those whose opinion 
it was that these abuses should be corrected. The result of the 
exertions of himself and the party with which for the fourteen years 
that he was a senator, he acted, is shortly told. They almost uni- 
formly failed in every measure that they brought forward or oppo- 
sed. It would far exceed the limits and the objects of this work 
to discuss at any length the merits of these several measures, some 
of which continue to this day the 'subject of anxious controversy 
upon another and a greater theatre. Yet it may be observed^ 
that the acts of the Irish legislature during the period in question 
afford matter, if not of a very attractive kind, at least of very sol- 
emn and important instruction. Whoever takes the pains to exam- 
ine them will find how transitory, and almost valueless to a nation 
the glory of asserting nominal rights, if there be not diffused 
throughout its various classes that fund of conservative virtue and 
spirit, which alone can give dignity and stability to its indepen- 
dence, by operating as a perpetual renewal of its claims. He will 
find one practical and terrible example (illustrated by continued 
discontents and disturbances, and finally by a rebellion) of the fol- 
ly of expecting that human beings, in whom the political passions 
have been once awakened, can be attached, or even reconciled, 16 
the most admired form of government, by any other means, than by 
a real and conscientious communication of those privileges, for 
which they would deem it dishonourable not to thirst. For the 
last eighteen years of her separate existence, Ireland was in the 
theoretic enjoyment of the same constitution which has long made 
Great Britain the wonder of other nations ; but in Ireland, howev- 

* According to a table of the state of the representation of Ireland, pub- 
lished in 1783, out of the 300 member.^ of t!:e House of Commons, (viz. for 
32 counties, 64 knights ; for seven cities, 14 citizens ; for one university, 
two representatives : for 110 boroughs, 220 burgesses), the people return- 
ed 81, including the 64 for coimties, and the patixR'^ th^ rpniainin^ 2-9-= 



100 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

er boasted the acquisition, it soon appeared to be but a lifeless 
copy, minutely exact in external form, but wanting all the vigour, 
and warmth, and imparting spirit of the glorious original. The 
Irish legislature, seduced by their fatal ardour formonopoly, would 
not see that their own emancipation had sent abroad a general taste 
for freedom, which it was most perilous to disappoint. Unwisely and 
ungenerously separating their interests and pride from those of 
their country, they preferred taking a weak and hostile position 
upon the nan-ow ground of exclusive privilege, instead of taking 
their stand, where there was ample space for the parliament and 
people, and for all, upon the base of the British constitution.* 
They affected to think that the time had not' arrived when the 
Catholic could be trusted ; as if the enjoyment of rights and confi- 
dence for a single year would not prove a more instructive school 
of fidelity than centuries of suspicion and exclusion. But in reali- 
ity it does not appear from the transactions of those times, that the 
minds of the excluded Catholics were less matured for all the res- 
ponsibilities of independence than those of the Irish aristocracy, 
upon whom alone the recent revolution had conferred it. The 
80,000 volunteers, %vho had been the instruments of that indepen- 
dence, were not a protestant association. The depreciated Cath- 
olic was in their ranks, adding the authority of his strength, his 
zeal, and his moderation, to the cause of the Irish parliament, and 
not unreasonably confiding, that in the hour of victory his services 
would be remembered. These services and claims were howev- 
er forgotten ; and here it is that the Irish legislature will be found 
utterly unworthy of that controlling power, which they had lately 
acquired over the destinies of their country — in abandoning as they 
did, a proud, irritated, and robust population, to all the contingent 
suggestions and resources of their indignation- — in not having " in 
terposed the constitution," to save the state. 

* *' I have read," said Mr. Curran, speaking of these unpopular maxims 
of the Irish Parliament, " I have read the history of other nations. 1 have 
read the history of yours. 1 have seen how happily you emerged from in- 
significance, and obtained a constitution. But when you washed this con- 
.stilution with the waters which were to render it invulnerable, you forgot 
that the part by which 3^ou held it was untouched by the immersion ; it was 
benumbed and iiot rendered invulnerable, and should therefore attract your 
tiicest care. — Iriak Par. Deb. 1787^ 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 101 

But the point of view, in which a regular history of the latter con- 
duct and character of the Irish House of Commons would supply 
matter of no ordinary interest to a lover of the British constitution, 
is in the example which it would afford, of an assembly, founded 
upon the model of that constitution, exhibiting itself in its stage of 
final deterioration. In Ireland the prediction of Montesquieu* has 
been verified — not in all its dismal extent, for Irish independence 
has found an euthanasia peculiar and accidental ; but still the spec- 
tacle of legislative immorality, and its instructive warnings, are the 
same. The corrupted Commons of Ireland surrendered all that 
was demanded — all that a few years before they had gloried in 
having acquired ; and if a valuable portion of their country's 
rights and hopes was not included in the sale, the praise 'of having 
respected them is due to the wisdom and mercy of the purchasers, 
and not to any honourable reluctance on the side of the mercenary 
sellers. In whatever light the act of union be viewed, in its ultimate 
consequences to the empire, the assembly which perpetrated it must 
be considered as having reached the farthest limits of degeneracy ; 
because 4he terms on which they insisted have stamped upon them 
a character of political dishonour, that disdained every control of 
compunction or of pride. For if the surrender to which they con- 
sented was regarded by them as a sacrifice of Ireland's rights, how 
enormous and unmitigated the delinquency ! — or if, on the other 
hand, they imagined it to be essential to the welfare of the empire, 
how vile and fallen that spirit which could degrade a necessary act 
of state into a sordid contract ! The parliament that could do this 
had no longer any morals to lose — and therefore it is that the con-^ 
stitutional Englishman, who is labouring to procrastinate the fulfil- 
ment of the prophecy that impends over his own hitherto more for- 
tunate country, is referred for abundant illustrations of the appre- 
hended crisis to the decline and fall of the Irish legislature. In 
contemplating that scene, he will have an opportunity of observing 
the great leading symptoms, and (which may equally deserve his 
attention) of discerning the minute, but no less unerring signs which 
portend that the spirit which gives it life is about to depart from th^ 

* " That the British constitution would Viot survive the event of the legis- 
lative power becoming more corrupt than the executive."-— 5";>mi of Law*- 



102 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

representative body : and should it ever be his calamity to witness, 
what he will find Ireland was condemned to see, the members of 
that body betraying, by their conduct and language, that they held 
their station as a portion of their private property, rather than as 
a temporary, public trust — should he observe a general and insa- 
tiate appetite for power, for the sake of its emoluments and not its 
honours^should he see, as Ireland did, grave and authenticated 
charges of public delinquency answered by personal tnenaces, or 
by most indecent ridicule — skilful duellists and jesters held in pe- 
culiar honour — public virtue systematically discountenanced, by im- 
puting its profession to a factious disappointed spirit — should he 
see, within the walls of the Commons' assembly, a standing brig- 
ade of mercenaries, recognising no duty beyond fidelity to their em- 
ployers, the Swiss defenders of any minister or any principle — 
should he, lastly, observe a marked predilection for penal restraints, 
an unseemly propensity to tamper with the constitution, by experi- 
mental suspensions of its established usages — should Englishmen 
ever find all, or many of these to be the characteristics of the de- 
positaries of their rights, let them remember the prediction of the 
philosopher, and the fate of Ireland, and be assured that their boast- 
ed securities are becoming but a name. 

But to record at length the progress of that fate, to dwell in any 
detail upon the various characters, and the various inducements 
(whether of hope, terror, avarice, ambition, or public duty) of the 
men who accelerated, and of those who would have averted the ca- 
tastrophe, might well be the subject of a separate and a very con- 
siderable work. It will be sufficient for the purposes of Mr. Cur- 
ran's history to have made these cursory allusions to the spirit of 
the times in which he acted, leaving more ample developments of 
it to himself, in the specimens of his eloquence that will be found 
in the following pages. 

Mr. Curran's parliamentary speeches have been always and just- 
ly considered as inferior to his displays at the bar. To this defi- 
ciency many circumstances contributed. Depending solely upon 
iiis profession for support, he was not only seldom able to give an 
undivided attention to the questions that were brought before the 
^senate, but h'^ perpetually came to the discussion of them, exhaust- 



LIFE OF eURRAN. 103 

ed by the professional labours of the day. The greater number 
of the important questions that emanated from the opposition were 
naturally introduced by the older leaders of that party ; while he, 
whose talents were most powerful in reply, was reserved to combat 
the arguments of the other side. The debates, upon these occa- 
sions, were in general protracted to a very late hour, so that it often 
happened, when Mr. Curran rose to speak, that the note-takers were 
sleeping over their task, or had actually quitted the gallery. But, 
most of all, the same carelessness of fame, which has left his 
speeches at the bar in their present uncorrected state, has irretriev- 
ably injured hi;s parliamentary reputation. While other members 
sat up whole nights retouching their speeches for publication, he al- 
most invariably abandoned his to their fate, satisfied with having 
made the exertion that his sense of duty dictated ; and deeming it 
of little moment that what had failed of success within the house 
should circulate and be applauded without.* 

Notwithstanding these disadvantages, however, his career in par- 
liament, supplies much that is in. the highest degree honourable to 
his talents, spirit, and public integrity ; of which the leading exam- 
ples shall be adverted to as they occur in the order of time. 

* Another circumstance contributed greatly to the inaccuracy of the re- 
ported speeches of such opposition members as would not take the pains of 
correcting them. The most skilful note-takers, of whom the' number was 
Tery small, were in the service of the government, and considered it a part 
©f their duty to suppress whatever it might not be agreeable to the adminis- 
tration to see published. 



J 04 ^^^'^ ^^ CURRAN. 

CHAPTER VI. 

Mr. Flood's plan of parliamentary reform— Mr. Curran's contest and duel 
with Mr. Fitzgibbon (afterwards Lord Clare) — Speech on pensions — His 
professional success —Mode of life— Occasional verses — Visits France — 
Letters from Dieppe and Rouen — Anecdote — Letter from Paris — Anec- 
dote—Letter- from Mr. Boyse — Anecdote of Mr. Boyse — Letters from 
Holland. 

The first occasion upon which Mr Curran's name appears in the 
parliamentary register, is in the tempestuous debate of November 
29, 1783, upon Mr. Flood's proposition for a reform in parliament. 
The convention of volunteers, by whom Mr. Flood's plan had been 
approved, was still sitting in Dublin. Aboat four o'clock in the af- 
ternoon of the 29th of November, that gentleman rose in the con- 
vention, and proposed that he, accompanied by such members of 
parliament as were then present, should immediately go down to the 
house of commons, and move for leave to bring in a bill exactly 
corresponding with the plan of reform approved of by them, and 
that the convention should not adjourn till the fate of his motion 
was ascertained. Lord Charlemont's biographer, who, apparently 
with much reason, condemns the violence of this proc€eding, des- 
cribes the scene in the house of commons as terrific : several of the 
niinority, and all the delegates from th€ convention, appeared in 
their military uniforms. As to the debate, "it was uproar, it was 
clamour, violent menace, and furious recrimination."* In the little 
that Mr. Gurran said, he supported Mr. Flood's motion. 

In the following month he spoke more at length in prefacing a 
Biotion on the right of the house of commons to originate money 
bills ; but as neither this, nor any of his parliamentary speeches 
during the sessions of 1783 and 1784, contain much that is remark- 
able, it would be unnecessarily swelling these pages to dwell upon 
them in detail. 

la the year 1785 took place his quarrel with the late Lord Clare 
f'lhen Mr. Fitzgibbon, the attorney general) an event \Vhich deeply 
jifected his future fortunes. During Mr, Curran's first years at the 

-^ Hardy'' s Life of Lord Charlemont. page 270 ; where the particulars of 
rlus interastijag scene are very strikingly detailed. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 105 

bar they had been on terms of polite and even familiar intercourse ;* 
but the dissimilarity of their public characters, the high aristocratic 
arrogance of the one, and the popular tenets of the other, soon 
separated them ; even their private tastes and habits would have 
forbidden a lasting friendship. Lord Clare despised literature, in 
which Mr. Curran so delighted. The one in private as in public, 
disdained all the arts of winning ; he was sullen or overbearing, 
and when he condescended to be jocular was generally offensive. 
The other was in all companies the reverse ; playful, communica- 
tive, and conciliating. Mr. Curran never, like his more haughty 
rival, regulated his urbanity by the rank of his companions ; or if 
he did, it was by a diametrically opposite rule ; the more humble 
the person, the more cautiously did he abstain from inflicting pain. 
For all those lighter talents of wit and fancy which Mr. Curran was 
incessantly and almost involuntarily displaying, Lord Clare had a 
real or an affected contempt, and would fain persuade himself that 
they were incompatible with those higher powers which he con- 
sidered could alone raise the possessor to an equality with himself, 
Mr. Curran was perhaps equally hasty in underrating the abilities 
of his antagonist. Detesting his arbitrary principles, and disgust- 
ed with his unpopular manners, he would see nothing in him but 
the petty despot, ascending to a bad eminence by obvious and un- 
worthy methods, and therefore meriting his unqualified hatred and 
invective. 

With such elements of personal dislike and political hostility, it 
is not surprising that when they met they should clash, and that the 
conflict should be violent and lasting. The very destinies of the 
two men seemed to have placed them where their contrasted quali- 
ties and peculiar force might be most strikingly displayed. Lord 
Clare was fitted by nature to attain power and to abuse it. Many 
men of inferior capacity might have attained as much ; but with- 
out his resources and perseverance, few could have continued so 
long to abuse it with impunity. Mr. Curran was either ignorant 
of or despised the arts which led to station : his talent lay not in 
defending doubtful measures or selecting political expedients, but 

* The first bag that IVTr. Curran ever carried was presented to him by Mr. 
Fitzgibbon,ybr 5-ood luck sake* 

14 



106 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

in exposing violated trust ; in braving and denouncing public de- 
linquents, in pathetic or indignant appeals to those natural elemen- 
tary principles of human rights, against which political expedients 
are too frequently directed. He could never, like Lord Clare, have 
managed a venal restless aristocracy, so as to command their con- 
currence in a long system of unpopular encroachments ; nor like 
him have continued for years to face the public reprobation of 
such conduct : as little could the latter, had he sided with the peo- 
ple, have brought to their cause such varied stores of wit and ridi- 
cule, and persuasive eloquence, as the harangues of his more gifted 
rival display. 

In a debate on attachments in the Irish house of commons, 
(1785) as Mr. Curran rose to speak against them, perceiving that 
Mr. Fitzgibbon had fallen asleep on his seat, he thus commenced : 
" I hope I may say a few words on this great subject without dis- 
turbing the sleep of any right honourable member, and yet per- 
haps 1 ought rather to envy than blame the tranquillity of the right 
honourable gentleman. I do not feel myself so happily tempered 
as to be lulled to repose by the storms that shake the land. If 
they invite rest to any, that rest ought not to be lavished on the 
guilty spirit."* Provoked by these expressions, and by the gene- 
ral tenor of the observations that followed, Mr. Fitzgibbon replied 
to Mr. Curran with much personality, and among other things de- 
nominated him 2. puny babbler. The latter retorted by the follow- 
ing description of his opponent. " I am not a man whose respect 
in person and character depends upon the importance of his office . 
I am not a young man who thrusts himself into the foreground of a 
picture, which ought to be occupied by a better figure ; I am not 
one who replies with invective when sinking under the weight of 
argument ; I am not a man who denies the necessity of a parlia- 
mentary reform at the time that he proves its expediency by re- 
viling his own constituents, the parish-clerk, the sexton, and grave- 

* Although Mr. Curran appears here to have commenced hostilities, it 
should be mentioned, that he was apprized of Mr. Fitzp:ibbon's having- given 
out in the ministerial circles that he should take an opportunity during this 
debate, in which he knew that Mr. Curran would t'>ke a part, of futting 
down the young patriot. The Duchess of Rutland and all the ladies of the 
Castle were present in the gallery to witness what Mr Curran called, in the 
course of the debate, " this exhibition by command." 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 107 

digger ; and if there be any man who can apply what I am not to 
himself, I leave him to think of it in the committee, and to contem- 
plate upon it when he goes home." The result of this night's de- 
bate was a duel between Mr. Curran and Mr. Fitzgibbon : after 
exchanging shots they separated, only confirmed in their feelings 
of mutual aversion, of which some of the consequences will appear 
hereafter. 

One of the public grievances, which the Irish opposition fre-* 
quently, but vainly, attempted to redress, was the enormity of the 
pension list. On the 13th of May in this year, (1786) Mr. Forbes 
brought forward a motion upon the subject, which, as usual, failed 
A part of Mr. Curran's speech upon that occasion may be givea 
as a specimen of the lighter mode of attack to which he sometimes 
resorted where he saw that gravity would have been unavailing ; 
and it may be observed that this, like many more of the same kind^ 
are historical documents, which are perhaps the most descriptive 
of the times. The very absence of serious remonstrance shews 
that serious remonstrance had been exhausted, and that nothing re- 
mained but that ridicule should take its vengeance upon those whoni 
argument could not reform.* 

" I am surprised that gentlemen have taken up such a foolish 
opinion as that our constitution is maintained by its different com- 
ponent parts mutually checking and controlling each other. They 
seem to think, with Hobbes, that a state of nature is a state of war- 
fare, and that, like Mahomet's coffin, the constitution is suspended, 
by the attraction of different powers. My friends seem to think 
that the crown should be restrained from doing wrong by a physic- 
al necessity, forgetting that if you take away from a man all power 
to do wrong, you at the same time take away from him all merit of 
doing right ; and by making it impossible for men to run into 
slavery, you enslave them most effectually. But if instead of the 
three different parts of our constitution drawing forcibly in right 
lines at opposite directions, they were to unite their power and 
draw all one way, in one right line, how great would be the effect 

* Upon this occasion Mr. Grattan caused the pension list to be read aloud 
by the clerk, and concluded his speech by saying, '* If I should vote that 
pensions are not a grievance, I should vote an impudent, an insolent, and a 
public lie.*' 



108 ^I^^E OF CURRAN. 

of their force, how happy the direction of their union ! The present 
system is not onhy contrary to mathematical rectitude, but to 
public harmony : but if instead of Privilege setting up his back to 
oppose Prerogative, he was to saddle his back and invite Preroga- 
tive to ride, how comfortably might they both jog along ; and 
therefore it delights me to hear the advocates for the royal bounty 
flowing freely, and spontaneously, and abundantly as Holywell in 
Wales. If the crown grants double the amount of the revenue in 
pensions, they approve of their royal master, for he is the breath 
of their nostrils. 

" But we will find that this complaisance, this gentleness between 
the crown and its true servants, is not confined at home ; it ex- 
tends its influence to foreign powers. Our merchants have been 
insulted in Portugal, our commerce interdicted. What did the 
British lion do ? Did he whet his tusks ^ Did he bristle up and 
shake his mane? Did he roar? No, no such thing ; the gentle 
creature wagged his tail for six years at the court of Lisbon ; and 
now we hear from the Delphic oracle on the treasury bench, that 
he is wagging his tail in London to Chevalier Pinto, w^ho he hopes 
soon to be able to tell us will allow his lady to entertain him as a 
lap-dog; and when she does, no^oubt the British factory will fur- 
nish some of their softest woollens to make a cushion for him to lie 
upon. But though the gentle beast has continued so long fawning 
and couching, I believe his vengeance will be great as it is slow, 
and that that posterity, whose ancestors are yet unborn, will be 
surprised at the vengeance he will take* 

^' This polyglot of wealth, this museum of curiosities, the pension 
list, embraces every link in the human chain, every description of 
men, women, and children, from the exalted excellence of a Hawke 
or a Rodney, to the debased situation of a lady who humbleth her- 
self that she may be exalted. But the lessons it inculcates form 
its greatest perfection. It teacheth that sloth and vice may eat 
that bread which virtue and honesty may starve for after they have 
earned it : it teaches the idle and dissolute to look up for that sup- 
port which they are too proud to stoop and earn: it directs the 
minds of men to an entire reliance upon the ruling power of the 
state, who feeds the ravens of the royal aviary that cry continually 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 109 

for food : it teaches ihem to irhitate those saints on the pension 
list that are like the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they 
spin, and yet are arrayed like Solomon in his glory ; in fine it teach- 
es a lesson, which indeed they might have learned from Epictetus, 
that it is sometimes good not to be over virtuous ; it shews that in 
proportion as our distresses increase, the munificence of the crown 
increases also ; in proportion as our clothes are rent the royal man- 
tle is extended over us. 

" But notwithstanding the pension list, like charity, covers a 
multitude of sins, give me leave to consider it as coming home to 
the members of this house ; give me leave to say, that the crown, 
in extending its charity, its liberality, its profusion, is laying a 
foundation for the independence of parliament; for hereafter, in- 
stead of orators or patriots accounting for their conduct to such 
mean and unworthy persons as freeholders, they will learn to des- 
pise them, and look to the first man in the state ; and they will by 
so doing have this security for their independence, that while any 
man in the kingdom has a shilling they will not want one. 

" Suppose at any future period of time the boroughs of Ireland 
should decline from their present flourishing and prosperous state ; 
suppose they should fall into the hands of men who wish to drive 
a profitable commerce by having members of parliament to hire or 
let ; in such a case a secretary would find a great difficulty, if the 
proprietors of members should enter into a combination to form a 
monopoly. To prevent which in time, the wisest way is to pur- 
chase up the raw material, young members of parliament just rough 
from the grass ; and when they are a little bitted, and he has got a 
pretty stud, perhaps of seventy, he may laugh at the slave mer- 
chant. Some of them he may teach to sound through the nose like 
a barrel-organ : some in the course of a few months might be taught 
to cry. Hear ! hear ! some Chair ! chair ! upon occasion ; though 
these latter might create a little confusion if they were to forget 
whether they were calling inside or outside of these doors. Again^ 
he might have some so trained, that he need only pull a string, and 
up gets a repeating member; and if they were so dull that they 
cou*ld neither speak or make orations (for they are difierent things) 
he might have them taught to dance, pedibm ire in senUntianu This 



no l^n^E OF CURRAN. 

improvement might be extended ; he might have them dressed it 
coats and shirts all of one colour, and of a Sunday he might marck 
them to church, Iwo and two, to the great edification of the people, 
and the honour of the Christian religion afterwards, like the an- 
cient Spartans, or the fraternity at Kilmainham, they might dine all 
together in a large hall. Good heaven ! what a sight to see them 
feeding in public, upon public viands, and talking of public sub- 
jects, for the benefit of the public ! It is a pity they are not immor- 
tal ; but I hope they will flourish as a corporation, and that pen- 
vsioners will beget pensioners to the end of the chapter." 

Mr. Curran was now (1786) in full practice at the bar. It may 
be acceptable to hear the manner he spoke himself of his increas- 
ing celibrity. The following is an extract from one of his private 
letters of this period. 

'' Patterson, chief justice of the common pleas, has been given 
over many days, but still holds out. My good friend Carleton* 
succeeds him. Had he got this promotion some time ago, it 
might have been of use to me, for I know he has a friendship for 
me ; but at present his partiality can add little to whatever advan- 
tage 1 can derive from his leaving about four thousand a year at the 
bar. 

" I understand they have been puffing me off to you from this, 
(Dublin). I have been indeed very much employed this term, and 
I find I have the merit imputed to me of changing a determination 
which the Chancellor had formed against Burroughs,? a few days 
ago. He has really been uncommonly kind and polite to me. — 
This, I believe, is the first time I ever became my own panegyrist, 
therefore excuse it : I should scarcely mention it for any vanity of 
mine, if it were not of some little value to others ; tot it up there- 
fore on the table of pence, not on the scale of vain glory." 

His life at this time was passed in a uniform succession of the 
same occupations, his professional and parliamentary duties. The 
intervals of business he generally spent at Newmarket, where he 

* The present Lord Carleton. 

t The present Sir William Burroughs, Bart. ; lately one of the judges of 
the supreme court of judicature at Calcutta. The cause to which Mr. Cur- 
ran's letter alludes was that of Newberg and Burroughs ; by his exertions 
in which he, had acquired a considerable agce.s.sion of fame. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. HI 

had taken a few acres of land, and built a house, to which he gave 
the name of the Priory, as the residence of the Prior of the Order 
of St. Patrick. In Dublin the reputation of his talents and his con- 
vivial powers introduced him to every circle to which he could de- 
sire to have access ; in the country he entered into all the sports 
and manners of his less polished neighbours, with as much ardour 
as if it was with them alone that he had passed, and was to pass, his 
days. The ordinary routine of his profession took him twice eve- 
ry year to Munster ;* and among the many attractions of that cir- 
cuit, he always considered, as one of the greatest, the frequent op- 
portunities it gave him of visiting and spending some happy hours 
with two of his oldest and dearest friends, (once his college fellow- 
students) the Rev. Thomas Crawford, of Lismore, and the Rev. 
Richard Gary, of Clonmel ; both of them persons unknown to fame, 
but both so estimable, as men, and scholars, and companions, that 
his taste and affections were perpetually recalling him to the charms 
of their society, 

* Upon one of these journeys, and about this period, as Mr. Curran was 
travelling upon an unfrequented road, he perceived a man in a soldier's 
dress, sitting by the road side, and apparently much exhausted by fatigue 
and agitation. He invited him to take a seat in his chaise, and soon discov- 
ered that he w^as a deserter. Having stopt at a small inn tor refreshment, 
Mr. Curran observed to the soldier, that he had committed an offence of 
which the penalty was death, and that his chance of escaping it was but 
small : " Tell me then," continued he, " wbether you feel disposed to 
pass the little remnant of life that is left you in penitence and tastmg, or 
whether you would prefer to drown your sorrow in a merry glass ?" The 
following is the deserter's answer, which Mr. Curran, in composing it, 
adapted to a plaintive Irish air. 

If sadly thinking, with spirits sinking, 

Could more than drinking my cares compose, 
A cure for sorrow from sighs I'd borrow, 

And hope to-morrow would end my woes. 
But as in wailing there's nought availing, 

And Death unfailing will strike the blow, 
Then for that reason, and for a season. 

Let us be merry before we go ! 

! To joy a stranger, a way-worn ranger, 

In every danger my course I've run ; 
Now hope all ending, and Death betViending, 

His last aid lending, my cares are done : 
No more a rover, or hapless lover. 

My griefs are over, and my glass runs low ; 
Then for that reason, and for a season, 

Let us be merry before we go I 



113 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

It may not be a very dignified circumstance in his history, yet it 
must be mentioned, that his arrival at Newmarket was always con- 
sidered there as a most important event. Gibbon somewhere ob. 
Serves that one of the liveliest pleasures which the pride of man 
can enjoy, is to reappear in a more splendid condition among those 
who had known him in his obscurity. If Mr. Curran had been 
proud, he might have enjoyed this pleasure to the full. Upon the 
occasion of every return to the scene of childhood, visits and con- 
gratulations upon his increasing fame poured in upon " the counsel- 
lor" from every side. '' His visiters," (according to his own des- 
cription) " were of each sex and of every rank, and their greetings 
were of as many kinds. Some were delivered in English, some in 
Irish, and some in a language that was a sort of a compromise be- 
tween the two — some were communicated verbally — some by letter 
or by deputy, the absentees being just at that moment 'in trouble,' 
which generally meaned, having been lately committed for some 
'unintentional ' misdemeanour, from the consequences of which, 
who could extricate them so successfully as ' the counsellor ?' some 
came in prose — some in all the pomp of verse ; for Mr. O'Connor, 
the roving bard, (of whom Mr Curran used to say, that if his ima- 
gination could have carried him as far as his legs did, he would have 
been the most astonishing poet of the age) was never absent ; at 
■whatever stage of their poetical circuit he and his itinerant muse 
might be, the moment certain intelligence reached them that the 
master of the Priory had arrived, they instantly took a short cut 
across the country, and laid their periodical offering at the feet of 
him whose high fortune they had of course been the first to pre- 
dict." 

All these petty honours gratified his heart, if not his pride, and 
he never fastidiously rejected them. Those who came from the 
mere ambition of a personal interview, he sent away glorying in 
their reception, and delighted with his condescension and urbanity; 
to those who seemed inclined "to carry away any thing rather than 
an appetite," he gave a dinner. The village disturber of the peace 
had once more a promise that his rescue should be effected at the 
ensuing assizes, while the needy laureat seldom failed to receive 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 113 

the " crozow," which he had " long preferred to the freshest lau- 
rels."* 

*" The poetry of the roving bard has by some accident perished ; but his 
name is preserved in a short and unambitious specimen oi his favourite art. 
His muse at one time became so importunate, that Mr. Curran found it 
necessary to discourage her addresses ; instead therefore of rewarding one 
of her effusions vi^ith the expected donation, he sent the bard the following 
impromptu : 

A collier once in days of yore, 

From famed Newcastle's mines, a store 

Of coals had rais'd, and with the load 

He straightway took Whitehaven road; 

When thither come, he look'd around, 

And soon a ready chap he found ; 

But after all his toil and pain, ) 

He measured out his coals in vain, > 

For he got nought but coals again, j 

Thus Curran takes O'Connor's lays, 

And with a verse the verse repays ; 

Not verse indeed as good as thine, 

Nor rais'd from such a genuine mine j 

But were it better, 'twere in vaia 

To emulate O'Connors strain. 

Then take, my friend — and freely take, 

The verses for the poet's sake : 

Yet one advice from me receive, 

'Twill many vain vexations save ; 

Should, by strange chance, your muse grow poor, 

Bid her ne'er seek a poet's door. 

The disappointed bard retored ; and his concluding verse, 

If you're paid such coin for your law, 
You'll ne'er be worth a single straw, 

was felt to contain so important and undeniable a truth, that his solicitations 
could be no longer resisted. These are trifles ; but the subject of these 
pages gladly sought relief in them, when satiated with more splendid cares. 
Mr. Curran coniposed two other little poems, of a different description, 
about this time. The first of the following has been praised, as possessing 
peculiar delicacy of thought, by the most admired poet that Ireland has pro- 
duced. 

ON RETURNING A RING TO A LADY. 

Thou emblem of faith — thou sweet pledge of a passion 

By heaven reserved for a happier than me — 
On the hand of my fair go resume thy loved station, 

Go bask in the beam that is lavish'd on thee ! 
And if, some past scene thy remembrance recalling. 
Her bosom shall rise to the tear that is falling, 
With the transport of love may no anguish combine, 
But be hers all the bliss— and the sufferings all mine! 

Yet say, (to thy mistress ere yet I restore thee) 
Oh say why thy charm so indifferent to me ? 
To her thou art dear then should I not adore thee ? 
(ii^an the hegrt that is hers be regardless of thee ? 
15 



il4 LIFE OF eURRAK, 

In the ycai' 1 787 Mr. Curran visited France, a country for whose 
literature and manners he had had a very early predilection. The 
following letters give an account of its first impressions on him ; 
and, however carelessly written, their insertion will be at least some 
relief to the harsher scenes of political contention, which occupy 
^o much of his future history. 

*' Dieppe, Friday, August 3Ist, 1787. 

" My last from Brighton told yoa I was setting sail — I did so 
about eight o'clock yesterday evening, and after a pleasant voyage^ 
landed here this day at twelve. To-morrow I set out for Rouen-r 
where I shall probably remain two or tbreq days. 



But the eyes of a lover, a friend, or a brother, 
Can see nought in thee, but the flame of another; 
Gn me then thoU'rt lost ; as thou never couldst prove 
The emblem of faith or the token of love. 

But, ah ! had the ringlet thou lov'st to surronnd — 

Had it e'er kiss'd the rose on the cheek of my dear, 
What ransom to buy thee could ever be found, ' 

Or what force from my heart thy possession could tear 1 
A mourner, a suff 'rer, a wanderer, a stranger — 
In sickness, in sadness, in pain, and in danger, 
Next my heart thou shouldst dwell till its last gasp were o'er- 
Then together we'd sink — and I'd part thee no more. 



ON MRS. BILLINGTON'S BIRTH-DAY. 

The wreath of love and friendship twine, 
And deck it round with flow'rets gay- 
Tip the lip with rosy wine, 
'Tis fair Eliza's natal day! 

Old Time restrains his ruthless hand. 
And learns one fav'rite form to spare ; 

Ligfht o'er her tread, by his command, 
The Hours, nor print one footstep there. 

In amorous sport the purple Spring 

Salutes her lips, in roses drest ; 
And Winter laughs, and loves to fling 

A fleak of snow upon her breast. 

So may thy days, in happiest pace, 

Divine Eliza, glide along I 
Unclouded as thy angel face. 

And sweet as thy celestial song ! 



-LIFE OF CURRAN. US 

^^ I cannot say the first view of France has made a very favoura- 
hle impression on me. I am now writing in the best lodging room 
in the best inn of Dieppe, I'hotel de la Ville de Londres, Mon- 
sieur de la Rue, the host, danced up to me on board the packet, did 
every thing I wanted, and offered a thousand services that I had no 
occasion for. I mounted to my present apartment by a flight of 
very awkward stairs ; the steps, some of brick, some of wood, but 
most of both. The room contains two old fantastical chests of 
drawers — a table on which I now writer-four chairs with cane backs 
and bottoms, and a bed five feet from the bricks that compose the 
floor (the first floor) ; the walls half covered with lime and half 
with a miserable tapestry. I dined very well, however, on a small 
iish like a trout, a beef steak, and a bottle of Burgundy, which the 
maid that attended me would not admit to be ' chevalier.' 

" I then walked out to see the town, and, God knows, a sad sight 
it is : it seems to have been once better, but it is now strength 
fallen into ruin, and finery sunk into decay* It smote me with a 
natural sentiment of the mortality of all human things; and I was 
led by an easy transition to inquire for the churches. I inquired of a 
decent looking man, who sat at a door knitting stockings, and he with 
great civility stopped his needles, and directed me to the church of St, 
Jacques, having first told me how fine it was and how many years it 
was built, it has a profusion of sculpture in it, and I suspect not of the 
best kind ; however, the solemnity of the whole made amends, and 
indeed I think well might, for that deficiency, to me who am so little 
a connoisseur in the matter. I could not but respect the disinter- 
estedness and piety of our ancestors, who laboured so much to 
teach posterity the mortality of man ; and yet, on turning the idea 
a little, I could not but suspect that the vain-glory of the builders ol> 
pyramids and temples was no small incentive to their labours : 
why else engrave the lesson of mortality in characters intended to 
endure for ever, and thus become an exception to the rule they 
w^ould establish ? But I am turning preacher instead of traveller. 

" I reserved the view of the inhabitants for the last. Every na- 
tion, 'tis said, has a peculiar feature. I trust poor France shall not 
be judged of in that point by Dieppe. I had expected to see 
something odd on my arrival, but I own I was unprepared for what 



116 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

I met ; the day was warm, and perhaps the better sort of people 
were all within. Many hundreds were busy on the quays and 
streets, but any thing so squalid, so dirty, and so ugly, I really 
never saw. At some little distance I mistook the women for sail- 
ors, with long boddices,and petticoats not completely covering their 
knees, which 1 really took for trowsers ; however, on a nearer view, 
I saw their heads covered with linen caps, their beards unshaved, 
and perceived they wore slippers with rather high heels ; by which, 
notwithstanding the robust shape of their legs, and their unusual 
strut, I ascertained their sex sufficiently for a traveller. 

" I may say truly, I did not see a being this day between the 
ages of fifteen and fifty. I oivn 1 was therefore surprised to 
find that there were children, for such I found to be a parcel of 
"Strange little figures ; the female ones with velvet hoods, and the 
male with their little curled heads covered with woollen nightcaps, 
regardless of the example of their hardy old fathers, if they were 
not their grandsires, who carried about heads without a hair or a 
hat to protect them. 

" In truth, I am at a loss to reconcile so many contradictions as 
1 have met with here even in a few hours. Even though I should 
not mention the height of their beds, nor the unwieldiness of their 
carriages, as if the benefit of rest was reserved for vaulters and 
rope-dancers, and the indolent and helpless only were intended to 
change their place ; but perhaps those impressions are only the first 
and the mistaken views of a traveller, that ought to see more and 
reflect more before he forms his opinions. I believe so too, and, 
if I change or correct them, the French nation shall have the bene- 
fit of my change of opinion. If not, 1 hope my mistake will not 
do much injury to the power, or riches, or vanity of his most Chris- 
tian Majesty. 

" Yours ever, 

«J. P. C." 

A few days after, in a letter from Rouen, he says : " I still find 
myself confirmed every day, in a preference for my own poor 
country. The social turn of this people certainly has the advan- 
tage 5 their manners are wonderfully open and pleasant 5 but stilJ, 



^ 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 117 

in every thing I have yet seen. I have observed a strange medley 
of squalid finery and beggarly ostentation, with a want of finishing 
in every article of building or manufacture, that marks them at least 
a century behind us. Yet have they their pleasant points ; gay, 
courteous, temperate, ill-clothed, and ill-accommodated, they seem 
to have been negligent only in what regarded themselves, and 
generously to have laboured in what may render them agreeable 
to their visiters." 

As Mr. Curran travelled on towards Paris, he re ceived a mark of 
public attention, for which he was in a great measure indebted to 
his eloquent defence of the Roman Catholic priest already men- 
tioned. His friend, the Reverend Arthur O'Leary (more general- 
ly called Father O'Leary) knowing that he was to pass through a 
particular town, wrole to the superior of a convent in the neigh- 
bourhood, describing the traveller that was shortly to arrive there, 
and requesting that so ardent a friend of their religion should be 
welcomed and entertained with all courtesy and honour. Mr. Cur- 
ran no sooner reached the place, than he received a pressing invi- 
tation to take up his abode at the convent. He accordingly pro- 
ceeded thither, and was met at the gates by the abbot and hig 
brethren in procession. The keys of the convent were presented 
to him, and his arrival hailed in a Latin oration, setting forth his 
praises and their gratitude, for his noble protection of a suffering 
brother of their church. 

Their Latin was so bad, that the stranger without hesitation re- 
plied in the same language. After expressing his general acknowl- 
edgments for their hospitality, he assured them, that nothing could 
be more truly gratifying to him than to reside for a few days among 
them ; that he should feel himself perfectly at home in their society ; 
for that he was by no means a stranger to the habits of a monastic life 
being himself no less than the Prior of an order in his own country, 
the order of St. Patrick, or the Monks of the Screw. Their fame, 
he added, might never have reached the Abbot's ears, but he w-ould 
undertake to assert for them, that, though the brethren of other or- 
ders might be more celebrated for learning how to die, the " Monks 
of the Screw" were as yet unequalled for knowing how to live. As, 
however, humility was their great tenet and uniform practice, he 



118 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

would give an example of it upon the present occasion, and instead 
of accepting all the keys which the Abbot had so liberally offered, 
would merely take charge, while he stayed, of the key of the wine- 
cellar. 

This little playful sally was accepted in the same spirit of good 
humour with which it was offered ; and the traveller, after passing 
two or three days with the Abbot, and pleasing every one by his 
vivacity and conciliating manners, proceeded on his journey, not 
without a most pressing invitation to take advantage of any future 
occasion of revisiting his friends at the convent. 

The following is extracted from one of his letters from Paris. 

" Paris, September 15, 1787. 

" I have been all about the world with the Carletons, visiting 
churches, libraries, pictures, operas, &c. Yesterday we went to 
Versailles, and, though a week-day, had the good luck to see his 
Majesty at chapel, after which he went out hunting ; after which 
we viewed the palace, the gardens, statues, ^c. bought two pair of 
garters at a pedlar's stall in an ante-chamber adjoining the great 
gallery, and so returned to town. All that could be seen even on 
a Sunday, besides, would be the Queen, who would probabljr take 
very little notice of her visiters ; so I shall probably, I think, go no 
more to Versailles. Mr. Boyse is perfectly well. 1 have wTitten to 
him this day. My health, thank God, has been perfectly good 
since I came here, to which I suppose the great temperance of this 
country has contributed not a little. I am early as usual ; read, 
write, dine, go to the coffee-house, the play, as usual ; one day now 
seems to be the former, and 1 begin to be vexed at its being the 
model of the next. Perhaps upon earth there cannot be found in 
one city such a variety of amusements : if you walk the Boulevards 
in the evening, you see at least ten thousand persons employed in 
picking the pockets of as many millions, reckoning players, rope- 
dancers, jugglers, buffoons, bird-sellers, bear-dances, learned beasts., 
&c. Yet 1 begin to grow satiated, and often wish for a more 
tranquil habitation." 

Among the traits of French manners, which Mr. Curran upon 
his jeturn related as having greatly entertained him, was the fol- 



LIFE OF CUKRAN. 1X0 

lowing little incident, which will be also found to be perfectly char- 
acteristic of his own. 

He was one evening sitting in a box, at the French Opera, be- 
tween an Irish noble- woman, whom he had accompanied there, and 
a very young Parisian female. Both the ladies were peculiarly in- 
teresting in their appearance, and very soon discovered a strong 
inclination to converse, but unluckily each was ignorant of the oth- 
er's language. To relieve their anxiety, Mr. Curran volunteered 
to be their interpreter, or in his own words, " to be the carrier of 
their thoughts, and accountable for their safe delivery." They ac- 
cepted the offer with delight, and immediately commenced a vigor- 
ous course of observations and inquiries upon dress and fashion, 
and such common-place subjects ; but their interpreter betraying 
his trust, changed and interpolated so much, that the dialogue soon 
became purely his own invention. He managed it however with 
so much dexterity, transmitting betw^een the parties so many finely- 
turned compliments, and elegant repartees, that the unsuspecting 
ladies became fascinated with each other. The Parisian demoiselle 
was in raptures with the wit and colloquial eloquence of milady^ 
whom she declared to be parfaitement aimable ; while the latter 
protested that she now for the first time kk the full charm of French 
vivacity. At length, when their mutual admiration was raised to 
its most ecstatic height, the wily interpreter, in conveying some 
very innocent question from his country-woman, converted it int» 
an anxious demand, if she might be favoured with a kiss. " Mais 
oui, mon Dieu, oui !" cried out the animated French girl, " j'allois 
le proposer moi-meme," and springing across Mr. Curran, imprint- 
ed an emphatic salutation, according to the custom of her country, 
upon each cheek of his fair companion ; and then turning to him, 
added, " vrairaent, monsieur, madame votre amie est un veritable 
ange." The latter never discovered the deception, but after her 
return to Ireland used often to remind Mr. Curran of the circum- 
stance, and ask, " what in the world the young lady could have 
meaned by such strange conduct .?" to which he would only archly 
reply, " Come, come, your ladyship must know that there is but 
one thing in the world that it could have meaned, and the meaning^ 
of that is so literal, that it does not require a commentator." 



IgQ LIFE OF CURRAN. 

The name of Mr. Boyse occurred in his last letter ; the friend of 
his childhood, between whom and Mr, Curran the most cordial in- 
tercourse continued until death dissolved it.* The delicacy of that 
gentleman's health had obliged him to reside for several years 
past upon the Continent, from which he regularly corresponded 
with his former pupil. One of his letters written in this year, shall 
be inserted, as an example of the kind and confidential feeling that 
pervades them all. 

" TO J. P. CURRAN, ESQ. 

ELY-PLACE, DUBLIN. 

" Bruxelles, Feb. 7, 1787, 

" DEAR JACK, 

'' 1 hope my friend's affairs are going well, and flourish- 
ing as when I left him : mine, I suppose, are in the last stage of 
consumption, so that I almost dread to make inquiry about them. 
My health has been so good this winter, that I came from Aix here 
to escort a Mr. Low and family, my relations, who are on their 
road to England and Ireland. To-morrow, I return to Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle for the remainder of the winter. I hope you were paid the 
money I drew on you for, as I must soon draw on you again for 
601. If I have no funds at Newmarket, I shall write to Dick Boyse 
'to pay you, and shall always take care that you shall be no suffer- 
er by me. 

" Let me hear how you go on, and what chance you have of the 
bench. I wish you had realised seven or eight hundred a year for 
your family. Is your health good, and yx)ur life regular ? I saw 
Grattan and Fitzgibbon at Spa ; the former friendly and agree- 
able, the latter disagreeable to every one. I dined with him and 
Mr. Orde, at a club where we are members, but he was solemn 
and displeasing to us all. My compliments to Grattan and 
his wife, and ask him for her on my part -, she is very amiable. 
What is to become of us with the White Boys .'' If I am not an ab- 
solute beggar, I will go home the latter end of the summer. How 

* Mr. Boyse died a few years after the present periodv 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 121 

go on all your children ? An account of yourself and them will 
give me pleasure. With best wishes to you all, 

'' I am, dear Jack, 

" Yours sincerely, 
"Nat. BoYSE.'' 

Mr. Boyse came over to Ireland in the following year. Upon 
the morning of his arrival in Dublin, as he was on his way to Ely 
Place, he was met by his friend, who was proceeding in great haste 
to the courts, and had only time to welcome him, and bid him 
defer his visit till the hour of dinner. Mr. Curran invited a num- 
ber of the eminent men at the bar to meet Mr. Boyse ; and on re- 
turning home at a late hour from court, with some of his guests, 
found the clergyman, still in his travelling dress, seated in a fa- 
miliar posture at the fire, with a foot resting upon each side of 
the grate, " Well, Jack," said he turning round his head, but nev- 
er altering his position, " here have I been for this hour past, ad- 
miring all the fine things that I see around me, and wondering where 
you could have got them all." " You would not dare," return- 
ed Mr. Curran, deeply affected by the recollections which the ob- 
servation called up, " to assume such an attitude, or use so little 
ceremony, if you were not conscious that every thing you see is 
your own. Yes, my first and best of friends, it is to you that I 
am indebted for it all. The little boy whose mind you formed, 
and whose hopes you animated, profiting by your instructions, has 
risen to eminence and affluence : but the work is yours ; what you 
see is but the paltry stucco upon the building of which you laid the 
foundation." 

This year (1788) Mr. Curran visited Holland, from which he 
writes as follows. 

" Helvoetsluys, August 1, 1788. 

" Just landed, after a voyage of forty-two hours, having left 
Harwich, Wednesday at six in the evening. We are just setting 
out in a treckscuit for Rotterdam. 

" I can say little, even if I had time, of the first impression that 
Holland makes on a traveller. The country seems as if it were 

16 



Jgg LIFE OF CURRAN. 

swimming for its life, so miserably low does it appear ; and from 
the little I have seen of its inhabitants, I should not feel myself much 
interested in the event of the struggle. We were obliged to put up 
an orange cockade on our entrance. We have just dined, and I 
am so disturbed by the settling the bill, and the disputes about 
guilders and stivers, &;c. that I must conclude. 

" Yours ever, 

«J.P.C.'» 

** Amsterdam, August 5, 1788. 

*' You can't expect to find much entertainment in any letter from 
Holland. The subject must naturally be as flat as the country, in 
which, literally, there is not a single eminence three inches above 
the level of the water, the greater part lying much below it. We 
met Mr. Hannay, a Scotchman, on the passage, who had set out on 
a similar errand. We joined accordingly. A few moments after 
my letter from Helvoetsluys was written, we set out in a treckscuit 
for Rotterdam, where after a voyage of twenty-four hours easy 
sail, we arrived without any accident, notwithstanding some strug- 
gle between an adverse wind and the horse that drew us. We 
staid there only one day, and next day set out for the Hague, a 
most beautiful village, the seat of the Prince of Orange, and the 
residence of most of the principal Dutch. Yesterday we left it, and 
©n going aboard found four inhabitants of Rouen, and acquaintan- 
ces of my old friend Du Pont. We were extremely amused with 
one of them, a little thing about four feet long, and for the first time 
in his life a traveller. He admired the abundance of the waters, 
the beauty of the windmills, and the great opulence of Holland, 
which he thought easy to be accounted for, considering that stran- 
gers paid a penny a mile for travelling, which was double what a 
French gentleman was obliged to pay at home ; nor could it other- 
wise be possible for so many individuals to indulge in the splenr 
dor of so many country villas as we saw ranged along the banks of 
the canals, almost every one of which had a garden and menagerie 
annexed. The idea of the menagerie he caught at the instant from 
a large poultry coop, which he spied at the front of one of those 
little boxes, and which contained half a dozen turkeys and as many 
hens. 



LIFE OF eURRAN. 123 

" The evening, yesterday, brought us to Amsterdam. We had 
an interpreter who spoke no language. We knew not, under hea- 
ven, where to go ; spoke in vain to every fellow passenger, but got 
nothing in return but Dutch ; among the rest to a person in whom 
notwithstanding the smoke, I thought I saw something of English. 
At length he came up to me, and said he could hold out no long- 
er. He directed us to an inn ; said he sometimes amused himself 
with concealing his country, and that once at Rotterdam he car- 
ried on the joke for five days, to the great annoyance of some un- 
fortunate Englishmen, who knew nobody, and dined every day at 
the table d'hote he frequented. Last night we saw a French com- 
edy and opera tolerably performed. This day we spent in view- 
ing the port, stad-house, &c. and shall depart to-morrow for Rot- 
terdam or Utrecht, on our way to Antwerp. 

" You cannot expect much observation from a visiter of a day : 
the impression, however, of a stranger, cannot be favourable to 
the people. They have a strange appearance of the cleanliness 
for which they are famous, and of the dirt that makes it necessa- 
ry : their outsides only have I seen, and I am satisfied abundantly 
with that. Never shall I wish to return to a country, that is at 
best dreary and unhealthy, and is no longer the seat of freedom ; 
yet of its arbitrariness I have felt nothing more than the necessity 
of wearing an orange riband in my hat. My next will be from Spa^ 
where I hope to be in six or seven days : till then farewell. 

*'• Yours ever, 

« J. P. C.» 



1^4^ LIFE OF CURRAN. 

CHAPTER VII. 

His majesty's illness — Communicated to the House of Commons— Mr. Cur- 
ran's speech upon the address— Regency question— Formation of the Irish 
Whig opposition— Mr. Curran's speech and motion upon the division of 
the boards of stamps and accounts — Answered by Sir Boyle Roche— Mr. 
Curran's reply — Correspondence and. duel with Major Hobart — Effects 
of Lord Clare's enmity — Alderman Howison's case. 

The year 1789 was in many respects one of the most interesting 
and important in Mr. Curran's life. From his entrance into par- 
liament he had hitherto been chiefly engaged in an occasional de- 
sultory resistance to the Irish administration, rather acting with, 
than belonging to the party in opposition ; but in this year a mo- 
mentous question arose, in the progress and consequences of which, 
there was such a development of the system by which Ireland was 
in future to be governed, that he did not hesitate to fix his political 
clestiny for ever, by irrevocably connecting himself with those 
whose efforts alone he thought could save their country. His late 
Majesty's most afflicting indisposition had taken place towards the 
close of the year 1788. It is known to all that upon the announce- 
ment of that melancholy event, the British parliament proceeded to 
nominate His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales regent, under 
particular limitations and restrictions ; a mode of proceeding which 
the Irish ministry were peculiarly anxious that the Irish parliament 
should studiously imitate. For this purpose great exertions were 
made to secure a majority. To Mr. Curran it was communicated 
that his support of the government would be rewarded with a judge's 
place, and with the eventual prospect of a peerage ; but he was 
among those who considered it essential to the dignity of the par- 
liament, and the interests of Ireland, that the heir apparent should 
be invited by address to assume the full and unrestricted exercise 
of the regal functions ; and fortunately for his fame, he had too 
much respect for his duties and his character, to sacrifice them to 
any considerations of personal advancement. 

The Irish administration had been anxious to defer the meet- 
ing of the legislature until the whole proceedings respecting the 
reg;ency should be completed in England, in the hope that the con- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 125 

duct pursued by the British parliament might be followed as a 
precedent in Ireland ; but the urgencies of the public business not 
admitting so long a delay, the session was opened on the 5th of 
February, 1789, by the viceroy (the Marquis of Buckingham), when 
the king's illness was for the first time announced to the country. 
On the following day, in the debate on the address of thanks, his 
excellency's late conduct was made the subject of much severe 
animadversion. Upon that occasion Mr. Curran spoke as follows : 

" I oppose the address,* as an address of delay. I deeply la- 
ment the public calamity of the king's indisposition : it is not so 
welcome a tale to me as to call for any thanks to the messenger 
that brings it. Instead of thanks for communicating it now, it 
should be resented as an outrage upon us that he did not commu- 
nicate it before. As to thanks for the wishes of Ireland, it is a 
strange time for the noble marquis to call for it. I do not wish 
that an ultimately vote of approbation should mix with the voice 
of a people's lamentation : it is a picture of general mourning, in 
which no man's vanity ought to be thrust in as a figure. But if it is 
pressed, what are his pretensions ? One gentleman (Mr. Boyd) 
has lost hundreds a year by his arts, and defends him on that 
ground ; another (Mr. Corry) praises his economy for increasing 
salaries in i\\e ordnance — the economy of the noble lord is then 
to be proved only by public or by private losses. Another right 
honourable gentleman (the attorney general) has painted him as a 
man of uncouth manners, much addicted to vulgar arithmetic, and 
therefore entided to praise. But what have his calculations done ? 
They have discovered that a dismounted trooper may be stript of 
his boots, as a public saving, or that a mutilated veteran might be 
plundered of half the pittance of his coals, as a stoppage for that 
wooden leg, which perhaps the humane marquis might consider as 
the most proper fuel to keep others warm. 

* One of the paragraphs of the address upon which the debate arose was 
the following' : *',\V^e return your excellency sincere thanks (however we 
must lament the necessity of such a circumstance) for ordering the commu- 
nication of such documents as you have received respecting his majesty's 
health ; as well as for your intention of laying before us such further infor- 
mation as may assist our deliberations upon that melancholy event.*' 



126 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

" But a learned gentleman (Mr. Wolfe) has defended the para- 
graph, as in fact meaning nothing at all. I confess I find the ap- 
peal to the compassion of the public stronger than that to their jus- 
tice. I feel for the reverses of human fate. I remember this very 
supplicant for a compliment, to which he pretends only because it 
is no compliment, drawn into this city by the people, harnessed to 
his chariot, through streets blazing with illuminations ; and now, 
after more than a year's labour at computation, he has hazarded 
on a paragraph stating no one act of private or of public good ; 
supported by no man that says he loves him ; defended, not by an 
assertion of his merit, but by an extenuation of his delinquency. 

" For my part I am but little averse to accede to the sentiment 
of an honourable friend who observed, that he was soon to leave 
us, and that it was harsh to refuse him even a smaller civility than 
^ every predecessor for a century had got. As for me, I do not op- 
pose his being borne away from us in the common hearse of his 
political ancestors ; 1 do not wish to pluck a single faded plume 
from the canopy, nor a single rag of velvet that might flutter on the 
pall. Let us excuse his manners, if he could not help them ; let us 
pass by a little peculation, since, as an honourable member says, it 
was for his brother ; and let us rejoice that his kindred were not 
more numerous. But I cannot agree with my learned friend who 
defends the conduct of the noble lord, on the present occasion. 
The viceroy here, under a party that had taken a peculiar line in 
Great Britain, should not have availed himself of his trust to for- 
ward any of their measures : he should have considered himself 
bound by duty and by delicacy to give the people the earliest no- 
tice of their situation, and to have religiously abstained from any 
act that could add to the power of his party, or embarrass any ad- 
ministration that might succeed him. Instead of that, he abused 
his trust by proroguing the two houses, and has disposed of every 
office that became vacant in the interval, besides reviving others 
that had been dormant for years. Yet the honourable member says 
he acted the part of a faithful steward. I know not what the honour- 
able member's idea of a good steward is ; I will tell mine. A good 
steward, if his master was visited by infirmity or by death, would 
secure every article of his effects for his heir ; he would enter into 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 127 

no conspiracy with his tenants ; he would remember his benefactor, 
and not forget his interest. 1 will also tell my idea of a faithless, 
unprincipled steward. He would avail himself of the moment of 
family distraction ; while the filial piety of the son was attending 
the sick bed of the father, or mourning over his grave, the faithless 
steward would turn the melancholy interval to his private profit; 
he would remember his own interest, and forget his benefactor ; he 
would endeavour to obliterate or conceal the title deeds ; to pro- 
mote cabals among the tenants of the estate, he would load it with 
fictitious incumbrances ; he would reduce it to a wreck, in order to 
leave the plundered heir no resource from beggary except continu- 
ing him in a trust which he had been vile enough to betray. I shall 
not appropriate either of these portraits to any man : I hope most 
earnestly that no man may be found in the community, whose con- 
science would acknowledge the resemblance of the latter. 
4 " I do not think the pitiful compliment in the address worthy a 
debate or a division ; if any gentleman has a mind to stigmatise 
the object of it by a poor, hereditary, unmeaning, unmerited pane- 
gyric, let it pass ; but I cannot consent to a delay at once so dange- 
rous and so disgraceful." 

^ The opposition proved upon this occasion the stronger party : 
Mr. Grattan's proposal that the Uth of February should be fixed 
for taking into consideration the state of the nation was carried, 
against the exertions of the ministry to postpone that important 
discussion to a more distant day. On the 11th accordingly both 
houses met ; when, upon the motion of Mr. Grattan in the one, and 
of Lord Charlemont in the other, the address to the Prince of Wales, 
requesting his royal highness to take upon himself the government 
of Ireland, with the style and title prince regent, and in the name 
and behalf of his majesty, to exercise all regal functions during his 
majesty's indisposition, was carried by large majorities in both 
houses. 

The particulars of the debate in the house of commons upon 
this interesting subject, in which Mr. Curran bore a distinguished 
part, it would be superfluous to detail in this place, as the legisla- 
tive union has for ever prevented the recurrence of such a question j 
it will be sufficient merely to observe, that the Whig majority who 



138 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

planned and carried the measure of an address were influenced by 
two leading considerations. In the first place it seemed to them 
that the proceeding by an address was the only one which would 
:not compromise the independence of the Irish parliament. They 
conceived the present situation of Ireland as similar in many res- 
pects to that of England at the period of the revolution : the throne 
indeed was not actually vacant, but an efficient executive was want- 
ing ; and upon the same principle that the two houses in England 
had, of their own authority, proceeded to supply the vacancy by 
the form of an address to the Prince of Orange, so it appeared 
should those of Ireland (an equally independent legislature) pro- 
vide for the deficiency of their third estate in the present instance. 
This line of conduct was strenuously opposed by the attorney gen- 
eral (Mr, Fitzgibbon) ; but the strongest of his arguments were 
rather startling than convincing, and made but little impression upon 
the majority, who justly felt that a great constitutional proceeding 
upon an unforseen emergency should not be impeded by any narrow 
technical objections, even though they had been more unanswerable 
than those adduced upon this occasion.* 

Next to supporting the dignity of the Irish parliament, the Whig 

* The following was one of Mr. Fitzgibbon*s arguments : " Let me now 
for a moment suppose, that we, in the dignity of our independence, appoint 
a regent for Ireland, being a diflferent person from the regent of England, a 
case not utterly impossible, if the gentlemen insist upon our appointing the 
Prince of Wales before it shall be known whether he will accept the regen- 
cy of England ; and suppose we should go farther, and desire him to give the 
royal assent to bills, he would say, * Mjr good people of Ireland, you have, 
by your own law, made the great seal of England absolutely and essentially 
Becessary to be affixed to each bill before it passes in Ireland ; that seal is 
in the hands of the chancellor of England, who is a very sturdy fellow ; that 
chancellor is an officer under the regent of England; I have no manner of 
authority over him ; and so, my very good people of Ireland, you had bet- 
ter apply to the regent of England, and request that he will order the chan- 
cellor of England to affix the great seal of England to your bills ; otherwise, 
my very good people of Ireland, 1 cannot pass them.' " 

'* This," saidMr. Curran, in his observations upon this argument, "is 
taking seals for crowns, and baubles for sceptres; it is worshipping wafers 
and wax in the place of a king ; it is substituting the mechanical quibble 
of a practising lawyer, for the sound deduction of a philosopher standing on 
the vantage ground of science ; it is more like the language of an attorney 
particular than an attorney general ; it is that kind of silly fatuity that on any 
other subject I should leave to be answered by silence and contempt ; but 
when blasphemy is uttered against the constitution, it shall not pass under 
its insignificance, because the essence should be reprehended, though the 
doctrine cannot make a proselyte." 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 139 

leaders of 1789 were actuated by the prospects of advantacje to 
Ireland which they anticipated from the change of administration 
and of system that were expected to follow their exertions. They 
were anxious to invest the heir apparent with the most unrestrain- 
ed regal authority, in the fullest confidence that the benefits on 
which they calculated would bo commensurate with the power to 
confer them. How far these sanguine hopes would have been re- 
alised, how far the measures of a ministry listening to the counsel 
of Mr. Fox could have healed the existing discontents, or have pre- 
vented the calamities that succeeded, must now be matter of con- 
troversial speculation, his Majesty's health having been fortunately 
restored before the arrangements regarding the regency were yet 
concluded. 

Although the conduct of the Irish house of commons at this im- 
portant crisis has been generally adduced as a proof of the danger- 
ous spirit of independence that pervaded that assembly, and there- 
fore insisted on as an argument for a legislative union ; yet, were it now 
worth while to examine the subject, it would not be difficult to show 
that the crowd who on that occasion so zealously volunteered their 
support of the opposition were influenced by far other motives than 
a lofty sense of their own country's dignity ; and that, however the 
English government might, at some rare conjuncture, be embar- 
rassed by their versatility, it had nothing to apprehend from their 
patriotic virtue. No sooner was it ascertained that the cause which 
they had lately espoused was to be unattended with emolument, 
than they returned in repentance to their tenets ; and incontestably 
did they prove in their subsequent life the extent and the sincerity 
of their contrition. 

There were a few, however, who would upon no terms continue 
their support of the Irish administration : they lost their places, 
which they might have retained, and, joining the opposition, ad- 
hered to it with undeviating and " desperate fidelity," as long as 
the Irish parliament continued to exist.* 

* Among these were Mr. George Ponsonby, and his brother, the late Lord 
Ponsonby ; and in the upper house, the Duke of Leinster. In a letter to 
Mr. Giattan, Mr. Curran thus alludes to the formation of the last opposition 
in the Irish parliament : *' You well remember the state of Ireland in 1789. 
and the necessity under which we found ourselves of forming some bond ot 

' 17 



130 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

It has been seen in the preceding pages, that the zeal with which 
Mr. Curran performed his public duties had ah'cady twice endan- 
gered his Hfe : in the beginning of the year 1790 it was again ex- 
posed to a similar risk. If his duel with the Irish secretary, Ma- 
jor* Hobart,* (now alluded to) had been the consequence of acci- 
dental intemperance of language or conduct on either side, the ac- 
count of it should be hastily dismissed ; but such was not its char- 
acter. The circumstances that preceded it are peculiarly illustra- 
tive of the condition of the times, of the state of the Irish house of 
commons, of the manner in which that state rendered it incumbent 
upon an honest senator to address it, and of the dangers that at- 
tended him who had the boldness to perform his duty. 

In the month of February, 1790, Mr. Curran made the following 
speech in that house : independent of the other reasons for which 
it is here introduced, it may be offered as among the most favoura- 
ble examples of his parliamentary oratory. 

" I rise with that deep concern and melancholy hesitation, which 
a man must feel who does not know whether he is addressing an 
independent parliament, the representatives of the people of Ire- 
land, or whether he is addressing the representatives of corruption : 
I rise to make the experiment ; and I approach the question with all 
those awful feelings of a man who finds a dear friend prostrate and 
wounded on the ground, and w4io dreads lest the means he should 
use to recover him may only serve to show that he is dead and gone 
for ever. I rise to make an experiment upon the representatives 
of the people, whether they have abdicated their trust, and have 
become the paltry representatives of Castle influence : it is to make 
an experiment on the feelings and probity of gentlemen, as was 
done on a great personage, when it was said ' thou art the man.' 
It is not a question respecting a paltry viceroy ; no, it is a question 

bonourahle connexion, by which the co-operation of even a small number 
might be secured, in making- some effort to stem that torrent which was car- 
Tying every thing before it. For that purpose our little party was then 
formed; it consisted of 5^ourse]f, the late Duke of Leinster, that excellent 
Irishman the late Lord Ponsonby, Mr. George Ponsonby, Mr. Daly, Mr. 
Forbes and some very few others. It may not be for us to pronounce enco- 
miums upon it, but we are entitled to say, that had it been as^successfui as it 
was honest, we might now look back to it with acme degree of satisfaction." 
-* The late Lord Buckinghamshire. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. j[31 

between the body of the country and the administration ; it is a 
charge against the government for opening the batteries of corrup- 
tion against the liberties of the people. The grand inquest of the 
nation are called on to decide this charge ; they are called on to de- 
clare whether they would appear as the prosecutors of the accom- 
plices of corruption : for though the question relative to the division 
of the boards of stamps and accounts is in itself of little importance, 
yet will it develop a system of corruption tending to the utter dos- 
truction of Irish liberty, and to the separation of the connexion with 
England. 

*' Sir, I bring forward an act of the meanest administration that 
ever disgraced this country. 1 bring forward as one of the threads by 
which, united with others of similar texture, the vermin of the mean- 
est kind have been able to tie down a body of strength and impor- 
tance. Let me not be supposed to rest here ; when the murderer 
left the mark of his bloody hand upon the wall, it was not the trace 
of one finger, but the whole impression which convicted him.* 

" The board of accounts was, instituted in Lord Townshend's ad- 
ministration : it came forward in a manner rather inauspicious ; it 
was questioned in parliament, and decided by the majority of the five 
members who had received places under it. Born in corruption, 
it could only succeed by venality. It continued an useless board 
until the granting of the stamp duties in Lord Harcourt's time : the 
management of the stamps was then committed to it, and a solemn 
compact was made that the taxes should not be jobbed, but that 
both departments should be executed by one board. So it con- 
tinued till it was thought necessary to increase the salaries of the 
commissioners in the Marquis of Buckingham's famous administra- 
tion ; but then nothing was held sacred : the increase of the reve- 
nue board, the increase of the ordnance, thirteen thousand pounds 
a year added to the infamous pension list, these were not sufficient, 
but a compact, which should have been held sacred, was violated 
in order to make places for members of parliament. How inde- 

* The allusion here is probably to a little story popular amono^ children 
in Ireland, which states that the murderer, intending to coverthe whole mark 
with dust, left that of one finger unconcealed ; but that be continued firmly 
to protest his innocence, until the removal of the dust convicted him, by dis- 
playing an impression corresponding exactly with the size of bis hand, A 
similar circumstance is introduced in an old Spanish play. 



j3g LIFE OF CURRAN. 

cent ! two county members prying into stamps ! What could have 
provoked this insult ? I will tell you : yoH remember when the 
sceptre was trembling in the hand of an almost expiring monarch ; 
when a factious and desperate English minister attempted to grasp 
it, you stood up against the profanation of the English, and the in- 
sult offered to the Irish crown ; and had you not done it, the union 
of the empire would have been dissolved. You remember this 5 
remember then yourselves — remember your triumph : it was that 
'triumph which exposed you to submit to the resentment of the vice- 
roy ; it was that triumph which exposed you to disgrace and flagel- 
lation. In proportion as you rose by union, your tyrant became 
appalled ; but when he divided, he sunk you, and you became de- 
based. How this has happened, no man could imagine ; no man 
tould have suspected that a minister without talents could have 
worked your ruin. There is a pride in a great nation that fears not 
its destruction from a reptile ; yet is there more than fable in what 
w^e are told of the Romans, that they guarded the Palladium, rather 
against the subtlety of a thief, than the force of an invader. 

" I bring forward this motion, not as a question of finance, not as 
a question of regulation, but as a penal inquiry ; and the people will 
now see whether they are to hope for help within these walls, or 
turning their eyes towards heaven, they are to depend on God and 
their own virtue. I rise in an assembly of three hundred persons, 
one hundred of whom have places or pensions ; 1 rise in an assem- 
bly, one third of whom have their ears sealed against the complaints 
of the people, and their eyes intently turned to their own interest : 
I rise before the whisperers of the treasury, the bargainers and run- 
ners of the Castle ;.! address an audience before whom was held 
forth the doctrine, that the crown ought to use its influence on this 
house. It has been known that a master has been condemned by 
the confession of his slave, drawn from him by torment ; but here 
the case is plain : this confession was not made from constraint ; it 
came from a country gentleman, deservedly high in the confidence 
of administration, for he gave up other confidence to obtain tlieirs. 

" I know 1 am speaking too plain ; but which is the more honest 
physician, he who lulls his patient into a fatal security, or he who 
points out the danger and the remedy of the disease r 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 133 

*' I should not be surprised if bad men of great talents should 
endeavour to enslave a people; but, when I see folly uniting with 
vice, corruption with imbecility, men without talents attempting to 
overthrow our liberty, my indignation rises at the presumption and 
audacity of the attempt. That such men should creep into power, 
is a fatal symptom to the constitution ; the political, like the material 
body, when near its dissolution, often bursts out in swarms of vermin. 

" In this administration a place may be found for every bad man, 
whether it be to distribute the wealth of the treasury, to vote in the 
house, to whisper and to bargain, to stand at the door and note the 
exits and entrances of your members, to mark whether tliey earn 
their wages — whether it be for the hireling who comes for his hire, 
or for the drunken aid-de-camp who swaggers in a brothel ; nay, 
some of them find their way to the treasury-bench, the political- 
musicians, or hurdygurdy-men, to pipe the praises of the viceroy. 

" Yet notwithstanding the profusion of government, 1 ask, what 
defence have they made for the country, in case it should be in- 
vaded by a foreign foe ? They have not a single ship on the coast. 
Is it then the smug aid-de-camp, or the banditti of the pension-list, 
or the infantine statesmen, who play in the sun-shine of the Castle, 
that are to defend the country ? No, it is the stigmatised citizens. 
We are now sitting in a country of four millions of people, and our 
boast is, that they are governed by laws to which themselves con- 
sent ; but are not more than three millions of the people excluded 
from any participation in making those laws ? In a neighbouring 
country, twenty-four millions of people were governed by laws to 
•which their consent was never asked ; but we have seen them strug- 
gle for freedom — in this struggle they have burst their chains, and 
on the altar, erected by despotism to public slavery, they have en- 
throned the image of public liberty. 

" But are our people merely excluded ? No, they are denied 
redress. Next to the adoration which is due to God, 1 bend in 
reverence to the institutions of that religion, which teaches mc to 
know his divine goodness! but what advantage does the peasant 
of the south receive from the institutions of religiou ? Does he ex- 
perience the blessing? No, he never hears the vuice of the shep- 



J 34 LIFE OF CURRAN. f 

hci'd, nor feels the pastoral crook; but when it is entering his flesh, 
and goading his very soul. 

<' In this country, sir, our king is not a resident ; the beam of 
royalty is often reflected through a medium, which sheds but a kind 
of disastrous twilight, serving only to assist robbers and plunderers. 
We have no security in the talents, or responsibility of an Irish 
ministry ; injuries w^hich the English constitution would easily repel 
may here be fatal. I therefore call upon you to exert yourselves, 
to heave off the vile incumbrances that have been laid upon you. 
I call you not as to a measure of finance or regulation, but to a 
criminal accusation, which you may follow with punishment. I 
therefore, sir, most humbly move : 

" That a humble address be presented to his Majesty, praying 
that he will order to be laid before this house the particulars of the 
causes, consideration, and representations, inconsequence of whick 
the boards of stamps and accounts have been divided with an in- 
crease of salary to the officers ; also that he will be graciously 
pleaded to communicate to this house the names of the persons who 
recommended that measure." 

To this speech, containing charges so grave and direct, and so 
demanding an equally solemn refutation if they were refutable, it 
is curious to observe the style of answer that was made. When 
appeals of this nature are received with contumely and mockery, 
it is perhaps among the most certain signs, that the legislature which 
can tolerate such a practice has completely survived its virtue. 

Sir B. Roche. — " Though I am in point of consequence the 
smallest man amongst the respectable majority in this house, yet I 
cannot help feeling the heavy shower of the honourable gentleman's 
illiberal and unfounded abuse. 

" If I had the advantage of being bred to the learned profession 
of the law, I should be the better enabled to follow the honourable 
gentleman through the long windings of his declamatian; by such 
means 1 should be blessed with " the gift of the gah^"^ and could 
declaim for an hour or two upon the turning of a straw, and yet say 
nothing to the purpose; then I could stamp and stare, and rend and 
tear, and look up to the gods and goddesses for approbation. Thea 
in the violence of such declamation, I should suppose myself stand- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 135* 

ing at the head of my shop (at the bar of the King's-bench) dealing 
out my scurrility by the yard to the highest bidder ; my shop being 
well stored with all sorts of masquerade dresses, to suit all descrip- 
tions of persons. The Newgate criminal (if I was well paid for it) 
I would dress up in the flowing robes of innocence. The innocent 
man (being also well paid for it) I could cover him up in a cloak of 
infamy, that should stick as close to him as his regimentals. 

" I am sorry to find that the military character does not seem to 
meet with the honourable gentleman's approbation. I profess my- 
self to have had the honour to be bred a soldier, and if there is any 
thing amiable or praise -worthy in my character, I am entirely in- 
debted to that school for it. If indeed I was bred a pettifogger, or 
a Newgate solicitor, I should be the better enabled to follow the 
learned gentleman through the variety of matter which he has in- 
troduced to the house. My right honourable friend,* upon the 
floor, is animadverted on and abused, because he is a soldier; but 
let me tell the honourable gentleman below me, that the high ground 
of his honour and character places him above the reach of his en- 
venomed shafts, bearded with envy, hatred and malice. 

The viceroy of this country is surrounded by military gentlemen of 
the first families in both kingdoms ; they are supposed to be out of 
the line of all politics, yet the indecent and disrespectful manner m 
which they are, on this occasion, held out in this house, does, in 
my apprehension, deserve the severest censure. I would, hov/ever, 
recommend it to the honourable gentleman to stop a little in his 
career of general abuse of men, who cannot be here to answer for 
themselves ; lest those gentlemen (who never offended him) might 
speak to him on the subject in another place. Oh, shame ! shame ! 
shame and reprobation on such behaviour!" 

After a long debate, Mr. Curran replied, and concluded with the 
following observations upon Sir Boyle Roche's language. 

" We have^been told this night in express words, that the man 
who dares to do his duty to his country in this house may expect 
to be attacked without those walls by the military gentlemen of the 
Castle. If the army had been directly or indirectly mentioned in 

* Major Hobart. 



136 ^^^^ ^^^ CURRAN. 

the course of the debate, this extraordinary declaration might be 
attributable to the confusion of a mistaken charge, or an absurd 
vindication ; but without connexion with the subject, or pretence 
of connexion with the subject, a new principle of government is 
advanced, and that is the bayonet; and this is stated in the fullest 
house, and the most crowded audience I ever saw. We are to be 
silenced by corruption within, or quelled by force of arms without. 
Kor is it necessary that those avowed principles of bribery and 
arms should come from any high personal authority ; they have 
been delivered by the known retailers of administration, in the face 
of that bench, and heard even without a murmur of dissent, or dis- 
approbation. As to my part, I do not know how it may be my 
destiny to fall-, it may be by chance, or malady, or violence, but 
should it be my fate to perish the victim of a bold and honest dis- 
charge of my duty, 1 will not shun it. I will do that duty, and if it 
should expose me to sink under the blow of the assassin, Ifeind 
become a victim to the public cause, the most sensible of my re- 
grets would be, that on such an altar there should not be immolated 
a more illustrious sacrifice. As to myself, while I live, I shall des- 
pise the peril. I feel, in my own spirit, the safety of my honour? 
and in my own and the spirit of the people do I feel strength enough 
to hold that administration, which can give a sanction to menaces 
like these, responsible for their consequences to the nation and the 
individual,'''^ 

Mr. Curran had soon occasion to act upon this last declaration. 
In a few days subsequent to the preceding debate, he was openly 
insulted by a person belonging to one of those classes, upon which 
he had accused the administration of squandering the public money. 
He accordingly deputed one of his friends, Mr. Egan, to acquaint 
the Secretary with the outrage that had been committed on him, in 
consequence of what he had asserted in the house of commons, and 
to express his expectation, *' that Major Hobart would mark his 
sense of such an indignity offered to a member of parliament by one 
of his official servants, in the dismissal of the man from his service." 
To this application Major Hobart replied, that " he had no power 
to dismiss any man from the service of government," and after re- 
ferring Mr. Curran to the house of comnionsj as the tribunal before 



LIFE OF CURRAN. Ig'Jf 

1^'hich he should complain of any breach of his privileges, expresse4 
his surprise " that any application should have been made to hina 
upon the occasion of an outrage committed by a person who was as 
much a stranger to him as he could be to Mr. Curran.'' Upon this 
the following correspondence ensued : 

*• TO THE RIGHT HON. MAJOR HOBART. 

March 28, 1790. 
" Sir, 

" A man of the name of * *, a conductor of your press, a 
writer for your government, your notorious agent in the city, your 
note-taker in the house of commons, in consequence of some obser- 
vation that fell from me in that house on your prodigality, in re- 
warding such a man with the public money for such services, had 
the audacity to come within a few paces of me, in the most fre. 
quented part of this metropolis, and shake his stick at me in a 
manner, which, notwithstanding his silence, was too plain to be 
misunderstood. I applied to you to dismiss him, because he is 
your retainer, for whom you ought to be responsible. You have 
had recourse to the stale artifice of office, and have set up incapa- 
city and irresponsibility against doing an act, which as a minister 
you were able, and which as a man of honour you should have been 
ready to do. As to your being a stranger to the man, you knew 
when you wrote it, that it was a pitiful evasion ; I did not apply to 
the secretary to discard a companion, but to dismiss the runner of 
his administration. As to your attempt to shelter yourself under 
the lord lieutenant, who, during the continuance of his government, 
cannot be responsible for such outrages, you should have felt that 
to be equally unworthy of you. If such subterfuges were tolerated, 
every member of parliament, eveTy gendeman of the country, who 
might become* obnoxious to the Castle, would be exposed to per. 
sonal violence from the ruffians of your administration. I should 
give up the cause of both, if I did not endeavour to check this 
practice, not in the person of the instrument, but of his abettor. I 
knew perfectly well the resentments I had excited by my public 
conduct, and the sentiments and declarations I have expressed con- 

1^ 



138 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

cerning your administration. I knew I might possibly become the 
victim of such declarations, particularly when I saw that an attempt 
at personal intimidation was part of the plan of government ; but I 
was too deeply impressed with their truth to be restrained by any 
consideration of that sort from making them in public^ or asserting 
them with my latest breath. 

" Sir, I am aware that you could not be convicted of having 
actually commissioned this last outrage upon me ; but that you 
have protected and approved it. I own I am very sorry that you 
have suffered so unjustifiable a sanction of one of your creatures to 
commit you and me personally. However, as you are pleased to 
disclaim the offender, and the power of punishing him, I feel I must 
acquiesce, whatever may be my opinion on the subject ; and though 
you have forced upon me a conviction that you have sacrificed the 
principles of a man of honour to an official expediency. This sen- 
timent I should have conveyed through my friend, but that it might 
possibly become necessary that our communication on this business 
should be public. 

^* I have the honour to be, 
" Sir, 
" Your obedient servant, 
" John P. Curran." 



" TO JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 

" Dublin Castle, March 29, 1790. 

" Sir, 

" Your original application to me, through Mr. Egan, was, 

that Mr. should be dismissed from the service of government, 

for the insult which he had offered to you ; or that government 
should co-operate with you in preferring a complaint to the House 
of Commons against him for a breach of their privileges. This 
application was, on the face of it, official ; and, in answer to it, I 
pointed out to you, by direction of his excellency the lord-lieuten- 
ant, the only mode by which you could have the redress you had 
sought for the outrage of which you had complained. You have 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 139 

now thought fit to desert the mode of official proceeding, and to 
couple a personal attack against me with an appeal to the public. 

" Whatever are your hopes and motives in such a conduct, be 
assured, that the attempt of making your cause the cause of the 
public will never succeed. The public will never believe that I 
could have directly or indirectly instigated any man to insult you. 
They will see that the regular mode of redress was open to you, 
even the redress you at first effected to seek. You will never fasten 
a belief on the public that any man was mad enough to insult a 
member of parliament, merely for his having accused the govern- 
ment of prodigality in rewarding him : nor will all your ingenuity 
serve to entangle me in that transaction, merely because you are 

pleased to style Mr. my retainer ; or to create a persuasion 

that I am personally responsible for the resentment of a servant of 
the government, who was placed in the situation which he now fills 
many years before I came into office. The public will view this 
matter in its true light ; and they will clearly perceive, what no man 
can ever justify, that you have transferred to me the quarrel which 
another has provoked, for no one reason, but because you think it 
politic so to do. 

" Your parade of the resentments which you boast to have ex- 
cited by your public conduct, and your insinuation that an attempt 
at personal intimidation was part of the plan of government, I can- 
not condescend to notice. The public will never be the dupes of 
such a paltry affectation, to give a popular complexion to your 
quarrel. 

As to your charge of my having sacrificed the principles of a 
man of honour to political expediency, the motive of the accusa- 
tion is too evident to demand a reply. I trust to my own charac- 
ter for its refutation, 

" I pity the condition of any man who feels himself reduced to 
the desperate expedient of endeavouring to wipe off th^ affronts 
and insults he has submitted to from others, by forcing a quarrel 
upon a man who never injured him in the remotest degree ; and I 
am at a loss to conceive how such a conduct can be reconciled to 
the principles or feelings of a gentleman or a man of honour. 

" Perhaps a man in a public situation, and who has given no ©f- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 

fence, might be well justified in appealing to the laws, if he should 
be personally called upon. I do not mean, sir, to avail myself of 
your example. You say, sir, that it may be necessary that the 
communication on this subject should be public : had you not said 
so, my answer to you would have been short indeed. 1 have lh6 
honour to be 

" Your obedient humble servant, 

" R. HOBART." 

" P. S. Having put you in possession of my sentiments^ I shall 
consider it unnecessary to answer any more letters." 



" TO THE RIGHT HON. MAJOR HOBART. 

^' March 30, 1790. 



a 



SIR, 



" As I wish to stand justified to the public and to you for 
having had recourse to you on the present eXtrabrdinary occ^sion,^ 
I beg leave once more to trouble you with a few lines, to which nd 
answer can be necessary. They will be addressed to you in thati 
temper which the general purport of the last letter I had the hori-^ 
our to receive entitles you to expect. 

'* An unparalleled outfage was offered to me : — the person was 
beneath my resentment. In this very difficult situation to whom 
could I resort but his masters ? and if to them, to whom but the 
first? 

*' I never charged you, sir, with instigating that man to such an 
act ; but am sorry that I cannot add, that such a part has been ta- 
ken to punish him as was necessary to acquit all your administra- 
tion. I know perfectly well you found him in office, and also in 
certain lower confidential depa|:*tments, which are more easily un- 
derstood than expressed ; and my complaint was, that, after such 
gross misconduct, he continued there. 

" I beg leave to remind you, that I did not say that any man was 
mad enough to insult a member of parliament, merely for accusing 
government of prodigality in rewarding him ; but I did say, and 
must repeat, that the insult upon me was made in consequence of 
my having arraigned the prodigality of rewarding suck a man for 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 141 

suck services. Permit me to add, that you cannot but have reason 
to believe this to be the fact. Some of your court have talked free- 
ly upon the subject; and the man, by his own application of the 
word, has acknowledged his vocation and his connexion. 

" I must still continue to think, that what you are pleased to call 
a quarrel is nothing but the result of my public conduct. Sure I 
am that I should have escaped the attacks that have been made 
upon my person and character, and this last among others, if that 
conduct had been less zealous and decided. 

" As to your charge of my forcing a quarrel upon a man — " who 
never in the remotest degree injured you" — there is something in 
the expression, which I acknowledge excites in my mind a very 
lively concern. And it is an aggravation of the outrage upon me, 
that it left me no resort, save one painful to my feelings, but ne- 
cessary to my situation. 

" As to the insinuation which accompanies your expression of 
regret, I am sorry it should have escaped from Major Hobart. He 
cannot seriously mean that I should squander my person upon 
every ruffian who may make an attempt upon my life. In the dis- 
charge of political and professional duties, every man must expect 
to excite enemies. I cannot hope to be more fortunate ; but I 
shall commit myself only with such as cannot disgrace me. A 
farther answer may be necessary to this part of your letter ; but 
that, as it cannot be so properly conveyed in writing, my friend 
Mr. Egan will have the honour to explain. I have the honour to be, 

" Sir, 
*•' Your obedient servant, 

"J. P. CURRAN.V 

A duel immediately followed, in which neither party received 
any injury. 

In reviewing this transaction, it would not be difficult for any 
one, who should feel so disposed, to produce many arguments in 
support of the conclusion, that Mr. Curran's demand of personal 
satisfaction from the Irish minister was a departure from the usa- 
ges of public life. Such a person would, however, leave out of 
his consideration the circumstances that provoked and that couli 



142 LIFE OF CURRAN* 

justify such a proceeding — the inflamed state of the times — the 
previous debate in parliament — the minister's tacit sanction of the 
menaces of his adherents — and Mr. Curran's remonstrance upon 
the occasion not having produced an observation that could deter 
the future insulter. The latter was the view which convinced 
himself and his friends that it was only by some such decisive 
measure as that which he adopted, that the privileges and per- 
sons of his party could be secured from farther violence. The 
particulars of the affair, however, are given here, not as a subject 
of controversy, but as a striking public fact, and an event in Mr. 
Curran's political life. 



Mr. Curran's dispute and frequent collisions in parliament with 
Mr. Fitzgibbon have been already adverted to ; and, in what has 
been hitherto related, the conduct of neither party has appeared 
marked by any peculiar aggravations : but the latter having now 
become Chancellor of Ireland, Lord Clare remembered the re- 
sentments of Mr. Fitzgibbon, and avenged the wounds he had re- 
ceived in the senate, by excluding Mr. Curran from all practice in 
his court.* Such a mode of reprisals has been generally repre- 
hended as merely unmanly and ungenerous, but it was a great deal 
more. The misconduct of persons in elevated stations is seldom 
canvassed with the rigour necessary to their perfect reprobation. 
So much does power impose upon the understandings of men, that, 
almost trembling to scrutinize the offences that should be most ex- 
posed, they are rather satisfied to consider the enjoyment of high 
trust as a kind of apology for its violation. A judge setting his 
face against a particular advocate does not commit a simple act of 

* This was effected by letting the public see that Mr. Curran had not (in 
the technical phrase) the ear of the court : and in this Lord Clare so entire- 
ly succeeded, that in a very little time no client would venture to entrust a 
chancery cause of any importance to the discountenanced advocate. Mr. 
Curran's loss of professional income was extreme. There was an imme- 
diate dimunition of 10001. a year, which the Court of Chancery alone had 
produced ; and this ah increasing income. The aggregate of his loss he 
always estimated at 30,0001. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 143 

uiikindness or indecorum ; he offers as criminal an outrage as can 
be imagined to the most sacred privileges of the community. The 
claim of the subject to be heard with impartiality is not derived 
from the favour of the judge ; it is a right, as independent of per- 
sons, and as sanctioned by law, as that which entitles the judge to 
sit upon the bench : it is the bounden duty of the latter to afford 
an honest unbiassed attention to every suitor in his court, or (what 
is equivalent) to such counsel as the suitor appoints to represent 
himself : when the judge, therefore, from motives of private or po- 
litical dislike, refuses, on hearing of a cause, the fullest indulgence 
that legal proceedings admit, he not only unworthily marks out an 
obnoxious individual as the victim of his own angry passions, di- 
minishing his credit, and thereby, perhaps, depriving him of his 
bread ; but as far as in him lies, he directly tends to defraud the 
unoffending subject of his property, or his reputation, or his life ; 
he does the same indirectly, by compelling the advocate, if he has a 
spark of the spirit befitting his station, to exhaust in resistance to such 
unseemly partiality a portion of that time and vigour which should be 
exclusively appropriated to the service of his client. These scenes 
of indecent strife too inevitably strip the seats of law of their char- 
acter and influence ; for who can look up with confidence or res- 
pect to a tribunal, where he sees faction domineering over equity, 
and the minister of justice degraded into a partisan ? 

This flagrant abuse of the judicial functions by Lord Clare has 
never incurred, in Ireland, all the odium that it merited — with his 
admirers it was a speck upon the sun, and his enemies had deep- 
er crimes to execrate. The widely different deportment of his 
successors has also removed all present apprehensions of a repe- 
tition of such scenes ; still the vicious model may find its imi- 
tators — the tramplers upon human rights are not peculiar to any 
generation ; and wherever they do appear, their exposure should 
be insisted on as a future protection to the public ; the characters 
of such men should be rendered an antidote to their example. 

For this deadly injury inflicted on him by the highest law-officer 
in the kingdom, Mr. Curran was not tardy in taking signal ven- 
geance. He saw that his enemy had advanced too far to recede — 
he disdained to conciliate him by submission or by mild expostula- 



144 J-IFE OF CURRAN. 

tion. To have acted with forbearance, or even with temper, 
(however amiable and prudent, had it been a private case) would 
have been in the present one, as he considered it, a desertion of 
what was to him above every personal consideration, of a great 
constitutional principle, involving the rights and securities of the 
client, and the honour and independence of the Irish bar. He was 
not insensible (it could hardly be expected that he should) to such 
an invasion of his feelings and his income ; but in resisting it as 
he did, with scorn and exposure, he felt that he was assuming the 
proud attitude of a public man, contending against a noxious sys- 
tem of " frantic encroachments," of which he was the accidental 
victim ; and that the result, however unproductive to his private 
interests, would, at least, show that the advocate was not to be 
scared from the performance of his duty by the terrors of contume- 
ly or pecuniary loss ; and that though the judge might be for the 
moment victorious in the contest, his victory should cost him dear. 

The opportunities of hurling direct defiance at Lord Clare might 
have now been rare. They could no longer meet in the House of 
Commons ; and the Chancellor provided against a frequent inter- 
course in his court ;* but an extraordinary occasion soon present- 
ed itself, and enabled the injured advocate to execute his objects 
©f retaliation, in the dignified character of a public avenger, before 
an audience where every blow was more public and more humili- 
ating. 

The lord mayor of the city of Dublin is chosen by the board of 
aldermen, whose choice is confirmed, or disapproved, by the com- 
mon council. In the year 1 790, the board elected a person (Alder- 
man James) whom the commons, without assigning the reasons of 
their disapprobation, successively rejected. Their real motive wai§ 

* The occasional style of their warfare in the Court of Chancery, for 
the little time that Mr. Curran continued to be employed there, may 
be collected from the following instance. Lord Clare had a favourite 
dog that sometimes follow(?d him to the bench. One day, during an 
argument of Mr. Curran's, the Chancellor, in the spirit of habitual petu- 
lance which distinguished him, instei^d of attending to the argument, turn- 
fid his head aside, and began to fondle the dog. The counsel stopped sud- 
denly in the middle of a sentence— the judge started. "I beg pardon,'* 
said Mr. Curran, " 1 thought your Lordships had been in consultation ; but 
as you have been pleased to resume your attention, allow me to impress up- 
on your eicellent understandings j that"— &c. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 145 

a determination to continue rejecting the names returned to them, 
until the election of the aldermen should fall upon a person attach- 
ed to the popular cause. The board perceiving this, and denying 
that the common council had such a right of capricious rejection, 
returned no more, and broke up without having duly elected a lord 
mayor. Upon this the sheriffs and commons (according to the law 
that provided for such an event) proceeded to elect one, and fixed 
upon a popular candidate, Alderman Howison. 

This contest between the board of Aldermen and the commons, 
after having undergone much violent discussion, and excited the 
utmost agitation in the metropolis, was now brought before the lord 
lieutenant and privy council (at which Lord Clare presided as 
Lord Chancellor) for their final decision. The council chamber 
was thrown open as a public court. The concourse of spectators, 
among whom were the most opulent and respectable citizens of 
Dublin, was immense. The question before the court was to be the 
mere legal construction of an act of parliament, but the Chancellor 
and the ministry notoriously favoured the pretensions of the board 
of aldermen, so that the question before the public was whether 
the rights of the city were to be treated with constitutional respect, 
or to be crushed by the despotic power of the Castle. 

Upon this solemn and vital question, Mr. Curran appeared as 
one of the leading counsel for the commons and the object of their 
choice, Alderman Howison. He had not proceeded far in his ar- 
gument before he showed that he did not mean to confine it to 
the literal and technical interpretation of a statute ; but that, 
looking at the question as the public did, he should raise it from a 
cold legal discussion into a great constitutional struggle between 
the privileges of the subject and the influence of the Irish ministry, j 
But he could not have taken a more infallible method of soon re- i 
ducing it from a question of law, or of principle, into a personal con- \ 
test between himself and the aristocratic chancellor. Accordingly 
their hostility immediately burst forth in the interruptions of the judge, 
and the contemptuous indifference with which they were treated by 
the advocate. At length, the latter (by way of allusion to the un- 
constitutional conduct of a former chancellor. Sir Constantine 
PhippSj upon a similar occasion) proceeded to draw the following 

19 



146 i-l^E OF CaiRRAN, 

picture of his irritated enemy, in his own presence, and in that of 
tHk assembled community.* 

" On grounds like these, for I can conceive no other, do I sup- 
pose the rights of the city were defended in the time to which I 
have alluded ; for it appears, by the records which 1 have read, 
that the city was then heard by her counsel ; she was not 
denied the form of defence, though she was denied the bene- 
fit of the law. In this very chamber did the chancellor and 
judges sit, with all the gravity and affected attention to argu- 
ments in favour of that liberty iand those rights which they had 
conspired to destroy. But to what end, my lords, offer argument 
to such men? A little and a peevish mind may be exasperated, but 
how shall it be corrected by refutation ? How fruitless would it 
have been to represent to that wretched chancellor, that he was 
betraying those rights which he was sworn to maintain; that he 
was involving a government in disgrace, and a kingdom in panic 
and consternation ; that he was violating every sacred duty, and 
every solemn engagement that bound him to himself, his country, 
his sovereign, and his God ! Alas! my lords, by what arguments 
could any man hope to reclaim or to dissuade a mean, illiberal, 
and unprincipled minion of authority, induced by his profligacy to 
undertake, and bound by his avarice and vanity to persevere ? He 
would probably have replied to the most unanswerable arguments 
by some curt, contumelious, and unmeaning apothegm, delivered 
with the fretful smile' or irritated self-sufficiency and disconcerted 

'* The person who was the most zealous in exciting a spirit of opposition 
in the common council whs Mr. Tandy, a member of the Whig Club.^ Mr. 
Grattan, one of the most distinguished members of the same association, 
speaks thus of the above transaction :- " An attack was made on the rights 
of the city. A doctrine was promulgated, that the common council had no 
fight to put a negative on the lord mayor chosen by the board of aldermen, 
except the board itself should assent to the negative put on its own choice. 
This doctrine was advanced by the court, to secure the election of the may- 
or to itself. In the course of the contest, the minister involved himself in a 
personal altercation with the citizens ;— with Mr. Tandy he had carried on 
a long war, and with various success. In the compass of his wrath, he paid 
his compliments to the Whig Club, and that club advanced the shield of a 
free people over the rights of the city, and humbled the minister, in the 
presence of those citizens, whose privileges he had invaded, and whose per- 
sons he had calumniated." Answer to Lord Clare'^s Pamphlet. 

Alderman Howison's counsel, Mr. Curran, and the late Mr. George Pon- 
sonby> were members of the Whig Club, and refused to accept any remune- 
ruion for their exertions upon this occasion. 



LIFE OF GURRAN. 14'y 

arrogance : or oven if he could be dragged by his fears to a coi\- 
sideration of the question, by what miracle could the pigmy capnci- 
ty of a stunted pedant be enlarged to a reception of the subject i 
The endeavour to approach it would have only removed him to a 
greater distance than he was before, as a little hand that strives to 
grasp a mighty globe is thrown back by the reaction of its own ef- 
forts to comprehend. It may be given to an Hale or an Hardwicke 
to discover and retract a mistake : the errors of such men are only 
specks that arise for a moment upon the surface of a splendid lumi- 
nary : consumed by its heat, or irradiated by its light, they soon 
purge and disappear ; but the perversenesses of a mean and narrow 
intellect are like the excrescences that grow upon a body naturally 
cold and dark; — no fire to waste them, and no ray to enlighten, they 
assimilate and coalesce with those qualities so congenial to their 
nature, and acquire an incorrigible permanency in the union with 
kindred frost and kindred opacity. Nor indeed, my lords, except 
where the interest of millions can be affected by the folly or the 
vice of an individual, need it be much regretted, that to things not 
worthy of being made better, it hath not pleased Providence to af- 
ford the privilege of improvement." 

Lord Clare. — '* Surely, Mr. Curran, a gentleman of your emi- 
nence in your profession must see that the conduct of former privy 
councils has nothing to do with the question before us. The ques- 
tion lies in the narrowest compass ; it is merely whether the com- 
mons have a right of arbitrary and capricious rejection, or are 
obliged to assign a reasonable cause for their disapprobation. To 
that point you have a right to be heard, but I hope you do not mean 
to lecture the council." 

Mr. Curran. — " I mean, my lords, to speak to the case of my cli- 
ents, and to avail myself of every topic of defence which I con- 
ceive applicable to that case. I am not speaking to a dry point of 
law, to a single judge, and on a mere forensic subject ; I am addres- 
sing a very large auditory, consisting of co-ordinate members, of 
whom the far greater number is not versed in law. Were I to ad- 
dress such an audience on the interests and rights of a great city, 
and address them in the hackneyed style of a pleader, I should make 
a very idle display of profession, with very little information to those 



J48 I^^E OF CURRAN. 

I address, or benefit to those on whose behalf I have the honour to 
be heard. I am aware, my lords, that truth is to be sought only by 
slow and painful progrevSS : I know also that error is in its nature 
flippant and compendious ^ it hops with airy and fastidious levity over 
f roofs and arguments^ and perches upon assertion^ which it calls con- 
elusion^ 

Here Mr. Curran's triumph over his proud enemy was complete. 
The sarcastic felicity of this description of the unfavourable side of 
Lord Clare's mind and manner was felt by the vvhole audience. 
The Chancellor immediately moved to have the chamber cleared, 
and during the exclusion of strangers was understood to have inef- 
ectually endeavoured to prevail upon the council to restrain the 
advocate from proceeding any further in that mode of argument 
which had given him so much offence. 

From this period till the year 1794, Mr. Curran's public history 
consists principally of his parliamentary exertions. The Opposi- 
tion " persisted to combat the project to govern Ireland by corrup- 
tion :" for this purpose they brought forward a series of popular 
measures j* in the support of all of which Mr. Curran took a lead- 

* The B30st important of these were Mr- Forbes's motion for a place bill, 
Mr. Grattan's for an inquiry into the sale of peerages, the Catholic question, 
parliamentary reform. The inquiry regarding the sale of peerages was 
twice moved ; by Mr. Grattan in 1790, and by Mr. Curran in the following 
year : both motions failed, although the fullest evidence of the fact was 
©ffered. " I have proof," said Mr. Curran," and I stake my character on 
producing such evidence to a committee, as shall fully and incontrovertibly 
establish the fact, that a contract has been entered into with the present 
ministers to raise to the peerage certain persons, on condition of their pur- 
chasing a certain number of seats in this bouse." Upon this last occasion 
Mr. Curran was loudly called to order, for having reminded the house "that 
they should be cautious in their decision on this question for they were in 
the hearing of a great number of the ijeople of Ireland.''^ Mr. Grattan de- 
fended the expression, and thought the doctrine of censure passed upon it 
inconsistent with the nature of a popular assembly such as a house of com- 
mons : in support of this opinion he quoted an expression of Lord Chat- 
ham, who in the house of peers, where such language was certainly less 
proper than in a house of commons, addressed the peers, "My Lords, I 
speak not to your lordships ; I speak to the public and to the constitution." 
*'The words," added Mr. Grattan, "were at first received with some 
murmurs, but the good sense of the house and the genius of the constitution 
justified him." Mr. Curran, on resuming, repeated the expression, and 
was again interrupted by violent cries to order, which, however, he silenced 
by observing, " I do not allude to any strangers in your gallery, but 1 allude 
to the constructive presence of four millions of people, whom a Serjeant at 
arms cannot keep unacquainted with your proceedings." — Irish ParU Deb. 
n9L 



LIFE OF CURRAN. I49 

ing part. Lord Charlemont's biographer, who heard him upon 
all those occasions, says of him, " That he animated every debate 
with all his powers; that he w^as copious, splendid, full of wit, and 
life, and ardour." Of the justice of this praise sufiicient proofs 
might be given, even from the loose reports of his speeches upon 
those questions; but it will be necessary in the following pages to 
offer so many examples of his forensic oratory, upon which his rep- 
utation so mainly depends, that his efforts in parliament become, 
as far as his eloquence is concerned, of secondary moment, and 
claim a passing attention, rather with reference to his history and 
conduct, than as necessary to his literary fame. 

During the debate upon the same subject in the preceding year, Mr. Grat- 
tan produced a paper, and read as follows : '' We charge them (the minis- 
ters) publicly, in the face of their countiy, with making corrupt agreements 
for the sale of peerages : for doing which, we say that they are impeacha- 
ble : we charge them with corrupt agreements for the disposal of the money 
arising from the sale, to purchase for the servants of the Castle seats in the 
assembly of the people ; for which we say that they are impeachable. 
We charge them with committing these offences, not in one, nor in two, but 
in many instances ; for which complication of offences we say that tliey are 
impeachable ; guilty of a systematic endeavour to undermine the constitu- 
tion, in violation of the laws of the land. We pledge ourselves to convict 
them ; we dare them to go into an inquiry ; we do not affect to treat thera 
as other than public malefactors ; we speak to them in a style of the most 
mortifying and humiliating defiance ; we pronounce them to be public crimi- 
nals. Will they dare to deny the charge ? I call upon and dare the osten- 
sible member to rise in his place and say, on his honour, that he does not be- 
lieve such corrupt agreements have taken place. I wait for a specific an- 
swer." Major Hobart avoided a specific answer. Six days after, Mr. 
Grattan, alluding to these charges, observed, *' Sir, I have been told it was 
said that I should have been stopped, should have been expelled the com- 
mons, should have been delivered up to the bar of the lords for the expres- 
sions delivered that day. I will repeat what I said that day " After recit- 
ing the charges serm^m in the same words, he tlius concluded, '"I repeat 
these charges now, and if any thing more severe was on a former occasion 
expressed, 1 beg to be reminded of it, and I will again repeat it. Why do 
you not expel me now ? Why not send me to the bar of the lords ? Where 
is your adviser ? Going out of the house I shall repeat my sentiments, that 
his majesty's ministers are guilty of impeachable offences, and advancing 
to the bar of the lords, I shall repeat these sentiments ; and if the Tower 
is to be my habitation, I will there meditate the impeachment of these min- 
isters, and return, not to capitulate, but to punish. Sir, 1 think I know my- 
self well enough to say, that if called forth to suffer in a public cause, I 
will go further than my prosecutors both in virtue and in danger." 



150 LIFE OF CURRAN. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

State of parties — Trial of Hamilton Rowan — Mr. Curran's fidelity to his 
party — Rev. William Jackson's trial — Conviction — and Death — Remarks 
upon that trial — Irish informers — Irish juries — The influence of the times 
upon Mr. Curran's style of oratory. 

The period was now approaching which afforded to Mr. Curran's 
forensic talents their most melancholy, but most splendid occasions 
of exertion. With this year (1794) commences the series of those 
historical trials which originated in the distracted condition of his 
eountry, and to the political interest of which his eloquence )ias 
BOW imparted an additional attraction. 

From the year 1789 the discontents of Ireland had been rapidly 
increasing: the efforts of the opposition in parliament having failed 
to procure a reform of the abuses and grievances of which the 
nation complained, an opinion soon prevailed throughout the com- 
munity that the Irish administration had entered into a formal de- 
sign to degrade the country, and virtually to annul its lately ac- 
quired independence, by transferring the absolute dominion over it 
from the English parliament, which had previously governed it to 
the English cabinet, which was to be its future ruler. Without in- 
quiring now into the truth of this opinion, it will be sufficient to ob- 
serve, that, in the agitation of the many irritating questions that it 
involved, it soon appeared that Ireland had little hope of seeing 
them terminated by the gentle methods of argument or persuasion. 
The adherents of the administration, and their opponents, were 
agreed upon the fact of the universal discontent, and upon the dan- 
gers that it threatened ; but they differed widely upon the measures 
that should be adopted for the restoration of repose. 

The first were determined to use coercion. They seemed to 
think that popular excesses are almost solely the people's own 
creation — that they are naturally prone to disaffection — that com- 
plaints of grievances are resorted to as a mere pretext to gratify 
this propensity ; and, consequently, that a provident government 
should vigorously resist every movement of discontent as the fear- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. |51 

ful tokens of projected revolution. In conformity with these opin- 
ions it appeared to them that terror alone could tranquilize Ire- 
land ; and, therefore, that every method of impressing upon the 
public mind the power of the state, no matter how unpopular their 
nature, or how adverse to the established securities of the subject, 
should be adopted and applauded as measures of salutary rev\ 

straint. 

* 

The truth and expediency of these doctrines were as firmly de-| 
nied by others, who maintained that conciliation alone could ap- 
pease the popular ferment. They deplored the general tendency 
to disaffection as notorious and undeniable ; but they considered 
that there would have been more wisdom in preventing than in 
punishing it ; that a very little wisdom would have been sufficient 
to prevent it; and that in punishing it now, the ministry were 
" combating, not causes, but effects." They denied that the great 
mass of the Irish, or of any community, were naturally prone to 
disaffection. " Their natural impulses (they observed, in reply- 
ing to the advocates of coercion) ar^ all the other way." Look 
into history ; for one revolution, or attempt at revolution, of 
how many long and uninterrupted despotisms do we read ; and, 
wherever such attempts occur, it is easy to assign the cause. — 
There is one, and only one way of measuring the excellence of 
any government — by considering the condition of the governed. 
No well governed people will desire to exchange real and present 
blessings for the danger and uncertainty of remote and fantastic 
speculations ; and if ever they are found to commit their lives and 
fortunes to such desperate experiments, it is the most conclusive 
evidence that they are badly governed, and that their sufferings 
have impelled them " to rise up in vengeance, to rend their chains 
upon the heads of their oppressors." Look to the neighbouring 
example of France, and see what abominations an infuriated pop- 
ulace may be brought to practise upon their rulers and upon them- 
selves. Let Ireland be saved from the possibility of such a crisis. 
The majority of its people are in a state of odious exclusion, visit- 
ing them in its daily consequences with endless insults and priva- 
tions, which, being minute and individual, are only the more intol- 
erable. Would it not be wite, then, to listen to their claim of 



153 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 



equal privileges, which, if granted, would give you the strongest 
security for their loyalty ? There are other grievances — the noto-. 
rious corruption of the legislature— the enormity of the pension list 
— and many more — of these the nation complains, and seems de-;, 
termined to be heard.* The times are peculiar; and, if the pop-J 
ular cry be not the voice of wisdom, it should at least be that o£f 
warning. The mind of all Europe is greatly agitated ; a general 
distrust of governments has gone abroad ; let that of Ire'and ex-^ 
hibit such an example of virtue and moderation, as may entitle it 
to the confidence of the people. The people seem inclined to lur-^ 
bulence; but treat it as a disease rather than avenge it as a crime.^ 
Between a state and its subjects there should be no silly punc-| 
tilio ; their errors can never justify yours : you may coerce — yo\ 
may pass intemperate laws, and erect unheard of tribunals, to pun-y 
ish what you should have averted — you may go on to decimate^ 
but you will never tranquillize."'!" 

These were in substance the views and arguments of the mi- 
nority in the Irish House pf Commons, and of the more re- 
fleeting and unprejudiced of the Irish community ; but such mil( 
doctrines had little influence with that assembly, or with the na-d 
tion. By the parliament the few that advanced them were re-*i 
garded as the advocates of the existing disorders, because theyJ 

1 ; 

* Every session the opposition, again and again, pressed upon the min- 
isters the dangers to which their system was exposing the state. Thus Mr,l 
Grattan observed, early in 1793, '* They (the ministers) attempted to pul 
down the constitution ; but now they have put down the government. W^ 
told them so — we admonished them — we told them their driving would not 
do. Do not they remember how in 1790 we warned them ? They sai( 
we were severe : — i am sure we were prophetic. In 1791 we repeated oui 
admonition — told them that a government of clerks would not do — that th< 
government of the treasury would not do — that Ireland would not long b( 
governed by the trade of parliament ; we told them that a nation, whicy 
had rescued her liberty from the giant of Old England, would not long beai 
to be trodden on by the violence of a few pigmies, whom the caprice of g 
court had appointed ministers." Air. Curran's language w^as equally em- 
phatic — '• Ireland thinks, that, without an immediate reform her liberty is 
gone : — I think so too. While a single guard of British freedom, either in-| 
einal or external, is wanting, Ireland is in bondage. She looks to us foi 
her emancipation. She expects not impossibilities from us — but she expect| 
honesty and plain dealirig; and, if she finds t^em not, remember r\bat 
predict — she will abominate her parliament, and look for a reform to her^ 
se]L"~rarLDeb. 1793. 

t For an elaborate view of the state of Ireland, and of public opinion a( 
this period, see Mr. Grattan's letter in tlie Appendix. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 153 

ventured to explain their origin, and to recommend the only 
cure ; while the people were industriously taught to withdraw their 
confidence from public men, who, instead of justifying the popular 
resentments by more unequivocal co-operation, were looking for- 
ward to the impending crisis as an object of apprehension, and not 
of hope. 

Such was the condition of the public mind — the government de- 
pending upon force — the people familiarising themselves to pro- 
jects of resistance — and several speculative and ambitious men of 
the middle classes watching, with yet unsettled views, over the fer- 
menting elements of revolution, until it should appear how far they 
could work themselves into union and consistency, when Mr. Ar- 
chibald Hamilton Rowan* published an address to the volunteers 
of Ireland, setting forth the dangers with which the country was 
threatened from foreign and domestic foes, and inviting them to 
resume their arms for the preservation of the general tranquillity. 
This publication was prosecuted by the state as a seditious libel, 
and Mr. Curran was selected by Mr. Rowan to conduct his defence. 

The speech in defence of Hamilton Rowan has been generally 
considered as one of Mr. Curran's ablest efforts at the bar. It is 
one of the few that has been correctly reported •, and to that cir- 
cumstance is, in some degree, to be attributed its apparent supe- 
riority. Notwithstanding the enthusiastic applause which its de- 
livery excited, he never gave it any peculiar preference himself. 

The opening of it has some striking points of resemblance to the 
exordium of Cicero's defence of Milo. If an imitation was intend- 
ed by the Irish advocate, it was very naturally suggested by the 
coincidence of the leading topics in the two cases — the public in- 
terest excited — the unusual military array in the court — the great 
popularity of the clients — and the factious clamours which prece- 
ded their trials.! 

* Mr. Rowen was secretary to the Society of United Irishmen in Dublin. 
It is proper to observe here, that this was one of the original societies of that 
denomination, whose views did not extend beyond a constitutional reform. 
They have been sometimes confounded with the subsequent associations, 
which, under the same popular appellation, aimed at a revolution. 

. t Nam ilia praesidia, quae pro templis omnibus cernitis, etsi contra vim 
coliocata sunt, nobis afferunt tamen horroris aliquid : neque eorum quisquaaa, 

20 



154 Lire: of curran. 

" When I consider the period at which this prosecution is brought 
forward — when T behold the extraordinary safeguard of armed sol- 
diers resorted to, no doubt, for the preservation of peace and or- 
der — when I catch, as I cannot but do, the throb of public anxiety, 
that beats from one end to the other of this hall — when I reflect on 
what may be the fate of a man of the most beloved personal charac- 
ter, of one of the most respected families of our country, himself 
the only individual of that family, I may almost say of that cour- 
try — who can look to that possible fate with unconcern ? Feeling, 
as I do, all these impressions, it is in the honest simplicity of my 
heart I speak, when I say that I never rose in a court of justice with 
so much embarrassment as on this occasion, 

" If, gentlemen, I could entertain a hope of finding refuge for the 
disconcertion of my own mind in the perfect composure of yours ; 
if I could suppose that those awful vicissitudes of human events 
that have been stated or alluded to, could leave your judgments 
undisturbed or your hearts at ease, I know I should form a most 
erroneous opinion of your character. I entertain no such chimerical 
hope — I form no such unworthy opinion — I expect not that your 
hearts can be more at ease than my own — I have no right to expect 
it ; but I have a right to call upon you in the name of your country, 
in the name of the living God, of whose eternal justice you are now 
administering that portion which dwells with us on this side of the 
grave, to discharge your breasts, as far as you are able, of every 
bias of prejudice or passion — that, if my client be guilty of the 
offence charged! Opon him, you may give tranquillity to the public 
by a firm verdict of conviction 5 or, if he be innocent, by 'as firm a 
verdict of acquittal ; and that you will do this in defiance of the 
paltry artifices and senseless clamours that have been resorted to, 
in order to bring him to his trial with anticipated conviction. And^ 
gentlemen, I feel an additional necessity of thus conjuring you to 
be upon your guard, from the able and imposing statement whick 

quos undique intuentes cernitis, unde aliqua pars fori adspici potest, et hujus 
exitura judicii expectantes> non cum virtuti Milonis favet, turn de se, de li- 
beris suis, de patria, de fortunis hodierno die decertari putat. 

Unum genus est adversum infestumque nobis eorum, quos P. Clodii furor 
rapinis et incendiis et omnibus exitiis publicis pavit ; qui hesterna etiam 
conciene incitati sunt, ut vobis voce piseirent, quid judicaretis. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. I55 

you have just heard on the part of the prosecution. I know well 
the virtues and the talents of the excellent person who conducts 
that prosecution.* I know how much he would disdain to impose 
on you by the trappings of office; but I also know how easily we 
mistake the lodgement which character and eloquence can make 
upon our feelings, for those impressions that reason, and fact, and 
proof only ought to work upon ouu understandings." 

When Mr. Curran came to observe upon that part of the publi- 
cation under trial, which proposed complete emancipation to per- 
sons of every religious persuasion, he expressed himself as follows : 
" Do you think it wise or humane, at this moment, to insult them 
(the Catholics) by sticking up in the pillory the man who dared to 
stand forth as their advocate f I put it to your oaths ; do you think 
that a blessing of that kind, that a victory obtained by justice over 
bigotry and oppression, should have a stigma cast upon it by an 
ignominious sentence upon men bold and honest enough to propose 
that measure? — to propose the redeeming of religion from the 
abuses of the church, the reclaiming of three millions of men from 
bondage, and giving liberty to all who had a right to demand it? — 
Giving, I say, in the so much censured words of this paper — giving 
^ Universal Emancipation?' 

" I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty 
commensurate with, and inseparable from, British soil ; which pro- 
claims even to the stranger and the sojourner, the moment he sets 
his foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is 
holy, and consecrated by the genius of universal emancipation. No 
matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced — no 
matter what complexion incompatible with freedom, an Indian or 
an African sun may have burnt upon him — no matter in what dis- 
astrous battle his liberty may have been cloven down — no matter 
with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of 
slavery — -the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the 
altar and the god sink together in the dust ; his soul walks abroad 
in her own majesty; his body swells beyond the measure of his 
chains that burst from around him ; and he stands redeemed, re- 

■* The Attorney-General, Mr. Wolfe, afterwards Lord Kilwardeu. 



156 ^^^^ ^^ CURRAN. 

generated, and disenthralled, by the irresistible genius of Universal 
Emancipation." 

There is, farther on, a passage on the freedom of tlie press, too 
glowing and characteristic to be omitted : — 

" If the people say, let us not create tumult, but meet in delega- 
tion, they cannot do it ; if they are anxious to promote parliamenta- 
ry reform in that way, they cannot do it ; the law of the last session 
has, for the first time, declared such meetings to be a crime. What 
then remains ? — The liberty of the press only — that sacred palladium 
which no influence, no power, no minister, no government, which' 
nothing but the depravity, or folly, or corruption of a jury can ever 1 
destroy. And what calamities are the people saved from, by hav- 
ing public communication left open to them ? I will tell you what 
they are saved from, and what the government is saved from. I 
will tell you also to what both are exposed, by shutting up that 
communication. In one case sedition speaks aloud, and walks 
abroad ; the demagogue goes forth — the public eye is upon him- 
he frets his busy hour upon the stage ; but soon either weariness, ori 
bribe, or punishment, or disappointment, bear him down, or drive J 
him off, and he appears no more. In the other case, how does the 
work of sedition go forward f Night after night the muffled rebel); 
steals forth in the dark, and casts another and another brand upom 
the pile, to which, when the hour of fatal maturity shall arrive, he; 
will apply the flame. If you doubt of the horrid consequences of j 
suppressing the effusion even of individual discontent, look to those^ 
enslaved countries, where the protection of despotism is supposedj 
to be secured by such restraints. Even the person of the despot 
there is never in safety. Neither the fears of the despot, nor the 
machinations of the slave, have any slumber; the one anticipating: 
the moment of peril, the other watching the opportunity of aggres- 
sion. The fatal crisis is equally a surprise upon both; the deci- 
sive instant is precipitated without warning, by folly oa the one 
side, or by phrensy on the other ; and there is no notice of the 
treason till the traitor acts. But if you wish for a nearer and more 
interesting example, you have it in the history of your own revolu- 
tion ; you have it at that memorable period when the monarch 
found a servile acquiescence in the ministers of his folly — when 



LIFE OF CURRAN. I57 

the liberty of the press was trodden under foot — when venal sheriffs 
returned packed juries, to carry into effect those fatal conspiracies 
of the few against the many — when the devoted benches of public 
justice were filled by some of those foundlings of fortune, who, 
overwhelmed in the torrent of corruption at an early period, lay at 
the bottom like drowned bodies, while soundness or sanity remain- 
ed in them ; but, at length, becoming buoyant by putrefaction, they 
rose as they rotted, and floated to the surface of the polluted 
stream, where they were drifted along, the objects of terror, and 
contagion, and abomination.* 

" In that awful moment of a nation's travail — of the last gasp of 
tyranny and the first breath of freedom, how pregnant is the exam- 
ple ? The press extinguished, the people enslaved, and the prince 
undone. As the advocate of society, therefore, of peace, of domes- 
tic liberty, and the lasting union of the two countries, I conjure 
you to guard the liberty of the press, that great sentinel of the state, 
that grand detector of public imposture — guard it — because when 
it sinks there sinks with it, in one common grave, the liberty of the 
subject, and the security of the crown." 

The concluding passage of this speech (of which the preceding 
extracts are inserted merely as examples of its style) contains one 
of those fine scriptural allusions, of which Mr. Curran made such 
frequent and successful use: — 

" I will not relinquish the confidence that this day will be the 
period of his sufferings; and however mercilessly he has been 
hitherto pursued, that your verdict will send him home to the arms 
of his family and the wishes of his country. But if (which Heaven 
forbid) it hath still been unfortunately determined that, because he 
has not bent to power and authority, because he would not bow- 
down before the golden calf and worship it, he is to be bound and 

* Although it has been doubted by some who have observed upon this 
passage, whether its vigour could atone for the images that it presents, it 
may not be ungratifying to hear the manner in which it was suggested to the 
speaker's mind. A day or two before Mr. Rowan's trial, one of Mr. Cur- 
ran's friends showed him a letter that he had just received from Bengal, in 
which the writer, after mentioning the Hindoo custom of throwing the dead 
into the Ganges, added, that he was then upon the banks of that river, and 
that, as he wrote, he could see several bodies floating down its stream. The 
orator shortly after, while describing a corrupted bench, recollected this 
/act, and applied it as above. 



158 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

cast into the furnace ; I do trust in God, that there is a redeeming 
spirit in the constitution, which will be seen to walk with the sufferer 
through the flames, and to preserve him unhurt by the conflagra- 
tion." 

If the expression of excited emotions by the auditors be the test 
of eloquence, this was the most eloquent of Mr. Curran's forensic 
productions. To applaud in a court of justice, is at all times 
irregular, and was then very rare ; but both during the delivery and 
after the conclusion of this speech, the bystanders could not re- 
frain from testifying their admiration by loud and repeated bursts 
of applause : when the advocate retired from the court, they took 
the horses from his carriage, which they drew to bis own house ; 
jet notwithstanding this public homage to his talents, the most 
grateful reward of his exertions was wanting — the jury, of whose 
purity very general suspicions were entertained, found a verdict 
against his client.* 

In the beginning of the year 1795, Lord Fitzwilliam having be- 
come viceroy of Ireland, Mr. Curran was upon the point of being 
raised to the situation of solicitor general ; but the sudden recal of 
that nobleman defeated this, as well as many other projected 
changes. 

It should be mentioned here, that from the year 1789, frequent 
attempts were made by the adherents of the administration to de- 
tach Mr. Curran from the party, which he had formally joined, at 
that period. Every motive of personal ambition was held out tp 
allure him, and all the influence of private solicitations exerted, but 
in vain. About this time, when the general panic was daily thinning 
the ranks of the opposition, his most intimate and attached friend, 
the late Lord Kilwarden (then the attorney general) frequently 

* Mr. Rowan was sentenced to fine and imprisonment. In the month of 
June, 1794, Dr. William Drennan was prosecuted for the publication of the 
same libel. He was defended by Mr. Curran, and acquitted ; not, how- 
ever, on the merits of the imputed libel, but on failure of proof that Dr. 
Drennan had published it. On the first of the preceding May, Mr. Rowan 
effected his escape from prison, and fled to France. After a long: exile, and 
many wanderings, he was permitted, a few years ago, to return to his 
country, where he now resides. An interesting communication from him- 
self upon this subject will be found in HoweH's State Trials for 1794. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 159 

urged him to separate himself from a hopeless cause, and to accept 
the rewards and honours that were so open to him. Upon one oc- 
casion, when Mr. Curran was confined by illness to his bed, that 
gentleman visited him, and renewing the subject, with tears in his 
eyes implored him to consult his interest and his safety : " I tell you 
(said Mr. Wolfe) that you have attached yourself to a desperate 
faction, that will abandon you at last ; with whom you have nothing 
to expect but danger and disappointment. With us, how different 
would be your condition — I ask for no painful stipulations on your 
part, only say that you would accept of oflfice — my situation will 
probably soon be vacant for you, and after that, the road would be 
clear before you." This proof of private affection caused Mr. 
Curran to weep, but he was unshaken ; he replied, " that he knew, 
better than his friend could do, the men with whom he was asso- 
ciated ; that they were not a desperate faction ; that their cause 
was that of Ireland, and that even though it should eventually be 
branded with the indeliable stigma of failure, he should never regret 
that it was with such men, and such a cause, that he had linked his 
:final destinies." 

TRIAL OF THE REV. W. JACKSON. 

The next state trial of importance in which Mr. Curran was en- 
gaged, was that of Mr. William Jackson, a case of which some of 
the attending circumstances were so singular, that they cannot be 
omitted here. 

Mr. Jackson was a clergyman of the established church ; he was 
a native of Ireland, but had for several years resided out of that 
country. A part of his life was spent in the family of the noted 
Duchess of Kingston, and he is said to have been the person who 
conducted that lady's controversy with the celebrated Foote.* At 
the period of the French revolution, he passed over to Paris, where 

* Foote, at the close of his letter to her Grace, observes : " pray, madam, 
is not J n the name of your female confidential secretary ?" and after- 
wards, " that you may never want th^ benefit of clergy in every emergency^ 
is the wish of 

Yours, &c." 



I go LIFE OF CURRAN. 

he formed political connections with the ruling powers there : from 
France he returned to London in 1794, for the purpose of procuring 
information as to the practicability of an invasion of England, and 
was thence to proceed to Ireland on a similar mission. Upon his 
arrival in London, he renewed an intimacy with a person named 
Cockayne, who had formerly been his friend and confidential attor- 
ney. The extent of his communications, in the first instance, to 
Cockayne did not exactly appear ; the latter, however, was pre- 
vailed upon to write the directions of several of Jackson's letters, 
containing treasonable matters, to his correspondents abroad ; but 
in a little time, either suspecting or repenting that he had been fur- 
nishing evidence of treason against himself, he revealed to the 
^British minister, Mr. Pitt, all that he knew or conjectured relative 
to Jackson's objects. By the desire of Mr. Pitt, Cockayne ac- 
companied Jackson to Ireland, to watch and defeat his designs, 
and as soon as the evidence of his treason was mature, announced 
himself as a witness for the crown. Mr. Jackson was accordingly 
arrested, and committed to stand his trial for high treason. 

It did not appear that he had been previously connected with any 
of the political fraternities then so prevalent in Ireland, but some 
of them took so deep an interest in his fate, that the night before 
his trial, four persons of inferior condition, members of those socie- 
ties, formed a plan (which, however, proved abortive) to seize and 
carry oflf Cockayne, and perhaps to despatch him, in order to de» 
prive the government of the benefit of his testimony.* 

Mr. Jackson was committed to prison in April, 1794, but his 
trial was delayed, by successive adjourments, till the same month 
in the following year. In the interval, he wrote and published a 
refutation of Paine's Age of Reason, probably in the hope that it 

* Trial of John Leary forhi^h treason, Dec. 28, 1795. This fact came 
out on the cross examination of Lawler, an informer, and the witness against 
the prisoner in this case. Lawler was one of the party that was to have 
seized Cockayne : he did not actually admit that he was to have been as- 
sassinated ; but he allowed that the objection to such a measure was, *' that 
if Cockayne were put to death, and the court should know it, the informa- 
tions he had given could be read in evidence against Jackson." From the 
character of Lawler, however, it was generally suspected that assassination 
was intended. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 161 

might J^e accepted as an atonement.* He was convicted, and 
brought up for judgment on the 30th of April, I795.t 

It is at this stage of the proceedings that the case of Jackson be- 
comes terribly peculiar. Never, perhaps, did a British .court of 
justice exhibit a spectacle of such appalling interest as was wit- 
nessed by the king's bench of Ireland, upon the day that this un- 
fortunate gentleman was summoned to hear his fate pronounced. 
He had a day or two before made some allusions to the subject of 
suicide. In a conversation with his counsel in the prison, he had 
observed to them that his food was always cut in pieces before it 
was brought to him, the gaoler not venturing to trust him with a 

* Examples of honourable conduct, no matter by whom displayed, are 
heard with pleasure by every friend to human nature. Of such, a very rare 
instance was given by this gentleman during his imprisonment. For the 
tvhole of that period he was treated with every possible indulgence, a fact 
which is so creditable to the Irish government, that it would be unjust to 
suppress it. Among the other acts of lenity extended to him, was a per- 
mission to enjoy the society of his friends. A short lime before his trial, 
one of these remained with him to a very late hour of the night ; when he 
was about to depart, Mr. Jackson accompanied him as far as the place 
where the gaoler usually waited upon such occasions, until all his prisoner's- 
visiters should have retired. They found the gaoler in a profound sleep, 
and the keys of the prison lying beside him. " Poor fellow !" said Mr. 
Jackson, taking up the keys, " let us not disturb him ; I have already been 
too troublesome to him in this way." He accordingly proceeded with his 
friend to the outer door of the prison, which he opened. Here the facility 
of escaping naturally struck him— he became deeply agitated ; but after a 
moment's pause, *' I could do it,^^ said he, " but what would be the conse- 
quences to you, and to the poor fellow within, who has been so kind to me ? 
No ! let me rather meet my fate." He said no more, but locking the prison 
door again, returned to his apartment. It should be added that the gentle- 
man, out of consideration for whom such an opportunity was sacrificed, gave 
a proof upon this occasion that he deserved it. He was fully aware of the 
legal consequences of aiding in the escape of a prisoner committed under 
a charge of high treason, and felt that in the present instance, it would have 
been utterly impossible for him to disprove the circumstantial evidence 
that would have appeared against him ; yet he never uttered a syllable to 
dissuade his unfortunate friend. He, however, considered the temptation 
to be so irresistible, that, expecting to find the prisoner, upon farther reflec- 
tion, availing himself of it he remained ail night outside the prison door, 
with the/ intention, if Mr. Jackson should escape, of instantly flying from 
Ireland. 

This anecdote is related in less detail by Mr. Thomas Addis Emmet, in 
Mac Neven's Pieces of Irish History 

t The report of Mr. Cuiran's defence of Jackson will be found in the 
lately publislied volume of Howell's State Trials. It was (as he observed 
himself )" a narrow case," and afforded few materials for the display of 
eloquence. The principal points which he urged, were the necessity of 
two witnesses (as in England) and the impeached character of the swingle 
witness, Cockayne. 

21 



162 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

knife or fork. This precaution he ridiculed, and observed, " that] 
the man who feared not death, could never want the means oi 
dying, and that as long as his head was within reach of the prison-J 
wall, he could prevent his body's being suspended to scare th( 
Gommunity." At the moment, they regarded this as a mere casual] 
ebullition, and did not give it much attention. 

On the morning of the 30th of April as one of these genllemei 
was proceeding to court, he met in the streets a person warml; 
attached to the government of the day ; the circumstance is trivial 
but it marks the party spirit that prevailed, and the manner ii 
which it was sometimes expressed : " I have (said he) just seen] 
your client, Jackson, pass by on his way to the king's bench t(A 
receive sentence of death. I always said he was a coward, and I] 
find I was not mistaken; his fears have made him sick — as the, 
coach drove by, I observed him with his head out of the window 
vomiting violently." The other hurried on to the court, where he^ 
found his client supporting himself against the dock ; his frame 
was ina state of violent perturbation, but his mind was still collect- 
ed. He beckoned to his counsel to approach him, and making an 
effort to squeeze him Avith his damp and nerveless hand, uttered 
in a whisper, and with a smile of mournful triumph, the dying words I 
of Pierre : 

" We have deceived the senate.'** 

The prisoners' counsel having detected what they conceived to 
be a legal informality in the proceedings, intended to make a mo- 
tion in arrest of his judgment ; but it would have been irregular to 
do so until the counsel for the crown, who had not yet appeared, 
should first pray the judgment of the court upon him. During the 
interval, the violence of the prisoner's indisposition momentarily 
increased, and the chief justice, Lord Clonmel, was speaking of 
remanding him, when the attorney general came in, and called upon 
the court to pronounce judgment upon him. Accordingly " the 
Reverend William Jackson was set foiT.ard," and presented a 
spectacle equally shocking and affecting. His body was in a state 
of profuse perspiration ; when his hat was removed, a dense steara 

* Olvvay's Venice Preserved, 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 163^ 

was seen to ascend from his head and temples ; minute and irreg- 
ular movements of convulsions were passing to and fro upon his 
countenance ; his eyes were nearly closed, and when at intervals 
they opened, discovered by the glare of death upon them, that the 
hour of dissolution was at hand. When called on to stand up be- 
fore the court, he collected the remnant of his force to hold him- 
self erect; but the attempt was tottering and imperfect: he stood 
rocking from side to side, with his arms in the attitude of firmness, 
crossed over his breast, and his countenance strained by a last 
proud effort into an expression of elaborate composure. In this 
condition he faced all the anger of the offended law, and the more 
confounding gazes of tjie assembled crowd. The clerk of the 
crown now ordered him to hold up his right hand ; the dying man 
disentangled it from the other, and held it up, but it instantly drop- 
ped again ! Such was his state, when in the solemn simplicity of the 
language of the law, he was asked, "What he had now to say why 
judgment of death and execution thereon, should not be awarded 
against him according to law ?" Upon this Mr. Curran rose, and 
addressed some arguments to the court in arrest of judgment. A 
legal discussion of considerable length ensued. The condition of 
Mr. Jackson was all this while becoming worse. Mr. Curran pro- 
posed that he should be remanded, as he was in a state of body 
that rendered any communication between him and his counsel 
impracticable. Lord Clonmel thought it lenity to the prisoner to 
dispose of the question as speedily as possible. The windows of 
the court were thrown open to relieve him, and the discussion was 
renewed : but the fatal group of death tokens were now collecting 
fast around him ; he was evidently in the final agony. At length, 
while Mr. Ponsonby, who followed Mr. Curran, was urging further 
reasons for arresting the judgment, their client simk in the dock,* 

* As soon as the cause of Mr. Jackson's death was ascertained, a report 
prevailed that his counsel had been previously in the secret, and that their 
motion in arrest of judgment was made for the sole purpose of giving their 
client time to expire before sentence could be passed upon him : but for 
the assertion of this fact, which, if true, would have placed them in as 
strange and awful a situation as can well be imagined, there was no foun- 
dation. So little prepared were they for such an event, that neither ot his 
assigned counsel (Messrs. Curran and Ponsonby) appenrcd in court until 
a considerable lime afiej- the pri'^oner hnd been brooght up. It was Mr. 



164 ^^^^ ^^ CURRAN. 

The conclusion of the scene is given as follows in the reported 
trial. 

Lord Clonmel. " If the prisoner is in a state of insensibility, it 
is impossible that n:an pronounce the judgment of the court upon 
him." 

Mr. Thomas Kinsley, who was in the jury box, said he would go 
down to him ; he accordingly went into the dock, and in a short, 
time informed the court that the prisoner was certainly dying. 

By order of the court Mr. Kinsley was sworn. 

Lord Clonmel. " Are you in any profession ?" 

Mr. Kinsley. " I am an apothecary." 

Lord Clonmel. " Can you speak with certainty of the state of| 
the prisoner ?" 

Mr. Kinsley. ^* I can ; I think him verging to eternity." 

Lord Clonmel. " Do you think him capable of hearing hisj 
judgment ?" 

Mr. Kinsley. " I do not think he can." 

Lord Clonmel. " Then he must be taken away ; take care thatj 
in sending him away no mischief be done. Let him be remanded! 
until further orders ; and I believe it as much for his advantage ag! 
for all yours to adjourn." 

The sheriff informed the court that the prisoner was dead. 

Lord Clonmel. " Let an inquisition, and a respectable one, be 
held on the body. You should carefully inquire by what means 
he died," 

The court then adjourned, and the body of the deceased remain- 
ed in the dock, unmoved from the position in which he had expi- 
red, until the following day, ^^hv&h an inquest was held. A large 
quantity of metallic poison was found in his stomach. The prece- 
ding day, a little before he was brought up to court, the gaoler 
having visited his room, found him with his wife, much agitated, 
and vomiting violently j he had just taken, he said, some tea, 

M'Nally, who had been one of his assistant counsel upon the trial, and who 
found him in the condition above described, that first became acquainted 
with the fa<:;t of his having taken poison ; and he, at the request of the un- 
fortunate prisoner, rose as amicus curice^ for the purpose of occupying the 
courf till the others should arrive and make their intended motion. It was 
probably from this circumstance that the report originated. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. Ig5 

which disagreed with him ; so that there remained no doubt that. 
the unfortuaate prisoner, to save himself and his family the shame 
of an ignominious execution had anticipated the punishment of the 
laws by taking poison. 

The following sentences, in his own hand writing, were found in 
his pocket. 

" Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me, for 1 am deso- 
late and afflicted." 

'^ The troubles of my heart are enlarged : Oh bring thou me out 
of my distresses." 

" Look upon my affliction and my pain, and forgive all my sins.'* 

" Oh ! keep my soul and deliver me. Let me not be ashamed. 
for I put my trust in thee." 

Independent of this awful scene, the trial of Jackson was a mem- 
orable event. It was the first trial for high treason which had oc- 
curred in that court for upwards of a century. As a matter of le- 
gal and of constitutional interest, it established a precedent of the 
most vital (Englishmen would say, of the most fatal) importance 
to a community having any pretension to freedom. Against the 
authority of Coke, and the reasoning of Blackstone, and against 
the positive reprobation of the principle by the English legislature, 
it was solemnly decided in Jackson's case, that in Ireland one wit- 
ness was sufficient to convict a prisoner upon a charge of high 
treason — " that the breath which cannot even taint the character 
of a man in England, shall in Ireland blow him from the earth.*" 
This decision has ever since been recognised and acted upon, to the 
admiration of that class of politicians (and they have abounded in 
Ireland) who contend, that in every malady of the state, blood 
should be plentifully drawn ; and to the honest indignation of 
men of equal capacity and integrity, who consider that, without 
reason or necessity, it establishes an odious distinction, involving in 
it a disdain of what Englishmen boast as a precious privilege, al- 
luring accusations upon the subject, and conferring security and 
omnipotence upon the informer. 

It is a little singular to observe, in the state trials that followed, 
the effects of such a law, and to what a class of witnesses it familiar- 

* Mr, Gurran's defence of Jackson. 



16(i Life of currai^. 

ized the Irish courts of justice. From the event it would appear, 
that there was as much of prophecy, as of constitutional zeal, in 
Mr. Curran's efforts to prevent its establishment, and afterwards 
to produce its repeal.* To say nothing but of a few of those cases 
in which he acted as counsel, the facts of Jackson, Weldon, M'Cann, 
Byrne, Bond, the Sheareses, Finney, rested almost entirely on the 
credibility, of a single witness. All of these, except the last, were 

* Two days after Jackson's conviction, Mr. Curran moved in the house 
of commons for leave to bring in a bill for amending the law of Ireland in 
cases of high treason, and assimilating it with that of England. 

The attorney general earnestly intreated of the mover to postpone the 
introduction of this bill, lest it might throw a character of illegality upon 
Jackson's conviction. He believed that the present difference in the law 
of the two countries (as to the number of witnesses required] did not arise 
from casual omission, but from serious deliberation : it was (he thought) 
rather necessary to strengthen the crown against the popular crime, than to 
strengthen the criminal against the crown. 

Mr. Curran differed, and considered the rock on which criminal lawgen- 
crall}^ split was its excessive severity. For the reason first assigned, how- 
ever, he agreed to postpone the bill ; but foreseeing its inevitable failure, he 
never brought it forward again. 

In England, by different statutes regulating trials for high treason, two 
witnesses are required. (Algernon Sydney's attainder, as is well known, 
was reversed, because, among other reasons, there had been but one legal 
witness to any act of treason.) When those statutes were enacted in Ire- 
land, the clauses requiring two witnesses were omitted. Upon Jackson's 
trial, therefore, the question was, what had been the old common law of 
England. Lord Coke lays it down, that by that law one witness was never 
sufficient. Judge Foster, differing from him gives it as his, and as the gen- 
eral opinion, that two \vere not required by the common law. Of the same 
opinion is Serjeant Hawkins. These (according to the report of Jackson's 
ti'hV) were tiie only authorities referred toby Lord Clonmei in deciding the 
point. For the contrariety of opinions upon this subject, see the proceed- 
ings in Sir J. Fenwick's case, State Trials. 

it cannot be too much lamented, that in such an important particular, the 
law of the two countries should thus differ. The principle cannot be right 
m both. Inferior regulations may vary, but the laws that provide for the 
safety of the state and the security of the subject are not local ordi- 
nances ; they are genera! laws, and should be founded on the principles 
which are to be derived from an experience of the operation of human pas- 
sions, a,nd of the value of human testimony. In Ireland, it has been said, 
that from the state of society, the crown demanded additional security : but 
the same argument applies as strongly the other way.; for if any communi- 
ty is in such a state of demoralization that its members are found violating 
their oaths, and indulging their passions by frequent acts of treason, is it not 
orjuaiiy clear that they will not refrain from doing the same by frequent 
acts ol perjured evidence ? Whoever will submit to the " penance" of read- 
ing the English or Irish state trials, will soon perceive that treason and per- 
jury are always cotemporary crimes, and that the dangers of the crown and 
oi the subject are at every period reciprocal and commensurate. Certainly, 
as the laws at present stand, either the English subject enjoys too many 
privileges, or the Irish too few ; but that the former is not the case long ex- 
pedience has now iacentestably established. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 167 

Cqnvicted ; and that they were involved in the projects, for which, 
they were tried and suffered, is now a matter of historical notoriety. 
Few, it is hoped, will maintain the dangerous principle, that the sub- 
ject should have the inducement of impunity to conspire against 
the state — such a doctrine would bring instant ruin upon any soci- 
ety ; but every friend to constitutional law will distinguish between 
the evidence that precedes a conviction and that which follows ; 
he will remember that the forms of trial, and the legality of 
evidence, have not been established for the solitary purpose 
Q^ punfshing the guilty ; that their most precious use is for the se- 
curity of innocence ; and that if, forejudging the real offender, w^e 
too hastily deprive him of a single privilege of defence, we estab- 
lish a perilous rule that survives the occasion and extends beyond 
it, and of which those who never offended may hereafter be the 
victims. If the trials of the individuals just named be considered 
with reference to this view, they will be found to contain matter of 
important reflection. We may not feel justified in lamenting their 
personal fate — in giving to their memories " the traitorous humani- 
ty and the rebel tear," yet we cannot but be shocked at the char- 
acters of the persons by whose evidence they were carried off. 
These were all of them men of blighted reputation. It was not 
merely that they had been accomplices in the crimes which they 
came to denounce ; and that, finding the speculation dangerous and 
unprofitable, they endeavoured to retrieve their credit and circum- 
stances, by setting up as " loyal apostates." Deeper far was, if 
not their legal offence, their moral depravity. Dreadful were the 
confessions of guilt, of dishonour, and irreligion extorted from 
these wretches. If their direct examination produced a list of the 
prisoners' crimes, as regularly did their cross-examination elicit 
a darker catalogue of their own. In the progress of their career 
from participation to discovery, all the tender charities of life were 
abused — every sacred tie rent asunder. The agent, by the sem« 
blance of fidelity, extracted the secret of his client and his friend, 
and betrayed him!* The spy resorted to the habitation of his vic- 
timj and, while sharing his hospitality, and fondling his children, 

* Jackson's Trial. 



168 LlFt: OF CURRAN. 

was meditating his ruin.* Here was to be seen the wild atheist, 
who had gloried in his incredulity, enjoying a lucid interval of faith, 
to .stamp a legal value on his oatht — there the dishonest dealer, 
the acknowledged perjurer, the future murderer.f 

It has been often a matter of surprise that juries had not the 
firmness to spurn altogether the testimony of such delinquents. In 
England, upon a recent occasion,§ a jury did so ; but in Ireland 
there raged, at this time, an epidemic panic. In the delirious fe- 
ver of the moment, even though the juror might not have thirsted 
for the blood of the accused, he yet trembled for his owt?; — af- 
frighted by actual danger, or by the phantoms of his disturbed im- 
agination, he became blind or indifferent to the horrors of the imme- 
diate scene. The question was often not whether the witness was 
a man he could believe, but whether his verdict dare assert the con- 
trary. Perhaps the more flagitious the witness, the more absolute- 
ly was he the tyrant of the juror's conscience. Any movements of 
humanity or indignation in the breast- of the latter must have in- 
stantly been quelled by the recollection, that to yield to them might 
be to point out himself as an object of suspicion, and as the next 
experiment for an adventurous and irritated informer. 

It is in the same circumstances that we are to look for an excuse 
(if excuse be necessary) for those iriipassioned appeals, for that 

* Jackson's Trial and the Trial of the Sheareses. A few days before 
Cockayne had openly announced himself as an informer, he was invited to 
accompany Jackson to dine with a friend of the latter. After dinner, as 
soon as the wine had sufficiently circulated, Jackson, according; to a previous 
suggestion fr»m Cockayne, began to sound the political dispositions of the 
company, and particularly addressed himself to a gentleman of rank who 
sat beside him, and who, there has been subsequent reason to believe, was 
deeply involved in the politics of the time. During the conversation, 
Cockayne appeared to have fallen asleep ; but, in the midst of it, the mas- 
ter of the house was called out by his servant, who informed him, that he 
had observed something very singular in Mr. Jackson's friend — " be has 
his hand," said the servant, *' over his face, and pretends to be asleep, but 
when I was in the room just now I could perceive the glistening of his eye 
through bis fingers." 1 be gentleman returned to his guests ; and, whisper- 
ing to him, who was conversing with Jackson, to be cautious in his lan- 
guage, probably prevented some avowal which might eventually have 
cost him his life. Upon such trivial accidents do the fates of men depend 
in agitated tiraes ! 

t Trial of the Sheareses. 

t Finney's Trial ; and the other State Trials of 1 798. 

§ Trial of Watson and others for high treason. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 169 

lone of high and solemn obtestation, by which Mr. Curran's pro- 
fessional efforts at this period are distinguished. In more tranquil 
times or in a more tranquil country, such enthusiasm may appear ex- 
travagant and unnatural ; but it should be remembered, that, from 
the nature of the cases, and the character of his audience, his ad- 
dress often became rather a religious exhortation than a mere fo- 
rensic harangue.* His situation was very different from that of the 
English advocate, who, presupposing in his hearers a respect for 
the great fundamental principles of law and of ethics, securely ap- 
peals to them, in the conviction, that, if his client deserves it, he 
shall have all their benefit. In Ireland the client was not certain 
of all their benefit. In Ireland, during those distracted days, eve- 
ry furious passion was abroad. The Irish advocate knew that the 
juries with whom he had to deal were often composed of men 
whose feelings of humanity and religion were kept under by their 
political prejudices — that they had already foredoomed his client to 
the grave— that, bringing with them the accumulated animosities of 
past centuries, they came less to try the prisoner than to justify 
themselves, and make their verdict a vote of approbation upon the 



* Of this, examples will occur in the following pages. Upon inferior OC' 
casions we find him impressing the most obvious political truths, by a sim- 
plicity of illustration, which shows the description of men among whom he 
was thrown. When he wished to explain to a jury, " that their country 
could never be prosperous, or happy, without a general participation of 
happiness to all its people," he thus proceeds : — " A privileged order in a 
state may, in some sort, be compared to a solitary individual separated from 
the society, and unaided by the reciprocal converse, affections, or support of 
his fellow men. It is like a tree standing singly on a high hill, and exposed 
to the rude concussions of every varying blast, devoid of fruit or foliage. If 
you plant trees around it, to shade it from the inclemency of the blighting 
tempest: and secure to it its adequate supply of sun and moisture, it quickly 
assumes all the luxuriance of vegetation, and proudly rears its head aloft, 
fortified against the noxious gales which agitate and w ither the unprotected 
bramble^ lying without the vei^e of the plantation. Upon this principle 
acted the dying man, whose family had been disturhed by domestic conten- 
tions. Upon his death-bed he calls his children around him ; he orders a 
bundle of twigs to be brought ; he has them untied; he gives to each of 
them a single twig ; he orders them to be broken, and it is done with fa- 
cility ; he next orders the twigs to be united in a bundle, and directs each 
of them to try his strength upon it. They shrink from the task as impossi- 
ble. ' Thus, my children (continued the old manl it is union alone that can 
render you secure against the attempts of your enemies, and preserve yoa 
in that state of happiness which I wish you to enjoy.*' 

Speech in Defence of Bird, Hamill, Qnd 
Gthers, tried at Urogheda^ 1194. 

22 



170 ^^^^^ Of CURRAN. 

politics of their party.* To make an impression upon such men, 
he had to awaken their dormant sympathies by reiterated state- 
ments of the first principles of morals and religion : he addressed 
himself to their eternal fears, his object being frequently, not so 
much to direct their minds to the evidence or the law, as to remind 
them of the christian duties ; and even in those cases, where both 
law and fact were upon his side, and where, under other circum- 
stances, he might have boldly demanded an acquittal, he was in 
reality labouring to extort a pardon. 

It was with the same view that he so often made the most im- 
passioned appeals, even to the bench, when he saw that its politi- 
cal feelings were hostile to the interests of his client. Thus, upon 

* The following obserx'ations of Mr. Curran will give some idea of the ju- 
ries of those days : he is addressing a jury impanelled to try the validity of 
a challenge. 

" This is no common period in the history of the world — they are no or- 
dinary transactions that are now passing before us. All Europe is shaken 
to its centre ; we feel its force, and are likelj'' to be involved in its conse- 
quences. There is no man who has sense enough to be conscious of bis own 
existence, who can hold himself disengaged and unconcerned amidst the 
present scenes : and, to hear a man say that he is unbiassed and unpreju- 
diced, is the surest proof that he is both. Prejudice is the cobweb that 
catches vulgar minds ; but the prejudices of the present day float in the 
upper regions — they entangle the lofty heads — they are bowing them 

down— you see them as they flutter, and hear them as they buz. Mr. 

has become a very public and a very active man : he has his mind, I doubt 
not, stored with the most useful and extensive erudition — he is clothed with 
the sacred office of a minister of the gospel — he is a magistrate of the coun- 
ty — he is employed as agent to some large properties— he is reputably con- 
nected, and universally esteemed, and therefore is a man of no small weight 
and consideration in this county. He has more than once positively sworn 
that he applied to the high sherifl"— that he struck ofi^no names but those that 
wanted freeholds ; but to day he finds that freeholders were struck off 63/ his 
own pen — he tells youjmylordsjand gentlemen triers,with equaljmodesty and 
ingenuity, that he has made a mistake — he returns eighty-one names to the 
sheriff— he receives blank summonses, fills what he deems convenient, &c. 
Gracious heaven ! what are the courts ofjustice? what is trial byjury? what is 
the country brought to?Were it told in the courts above — were it told in other 
countries — were it told in Westminster Hall, that such a man was permitted 
to return nearly one half of the grand panel of the county from one particu- 
lar district, — a district under severe distress,- to which he is agent, and on 
which, with the authority he possesses, he is able to bring great calamity I 
He ascends the pulpit with the gospel of benignity and peace — he endeav- 
ours to impress himself and others with its meek and holy spirit : — he 
descends — throws off the purple — seizes the insurrection act in the one hand, 
and the whip in the other— flies by night and by day after his game ; and, 
with his heart panting, his breath exhausted, and his belly on the ground 
in the chase, he turns round, and tells you that his mind is unprejudiced— 
that his breast is full of softness and humanity. -'-^-Do^i-n Assizes, 1796. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 171 

(he trial of Hamilton Rowan, the principal witness for the crown 
having deposed that he had seen Mr. Rowan at a meeting of Unit- 
ed Irishmen, consisting of one hundred and fifty persons, and his 
evidence upon this most material fact having been impeached, the 
chief justice (Lord Clonmel) in his charge to the jury, observed, 
«' One hundred and fifty volunteers, or United Irishmen, and not 
one comes forward ! Many of them would have been proud to as- 
sist him (the traverser.) Their silence speaks a thousand times more 
strongly than any cavilling upon this man'^s credit — the silence of 
such a number is a volume of evidence in support of the prosecu- 
tion,^^^ Upon a motion for a new trial, Mr. Curran, in comment- 
ing upon those expressions, could not refrain from exclaiming, " I 
never before heard an intimation from any judge to a jury that 
bad evidence, liable to any and every exception, ought to receive 
a sanction from the silence of the party. With anxiety for the hon- 
our and religion of the law, I demand it of you, must not the jury 
have understood that this silence was evidence to go to them ? Is the 
meaning contained in the expression ' a volume of evidence' only 
insinuation ? I do not know where any man could be safe — I do not 
know what any man could do to screen himself from prosecution 
— I know not how he could be secure, even when he was at pray- 
ers before the throne of Heaven, that he was not passing that mo- 
ment of his life, in which he was to be charged with the commis- 
sion of some crime to be expiated to society, by the loss of his 
liberty or of his life — I do not know what shall become of the sub- 
ject, if the jury are to be told that the silence of a man charged is 
' a volume of evidence,' that he is guilty of the crime. Where is 
it written ? I know there is a place where vulgar phrensy cries out 
that the public instrument must be drenched in blood — where de- 
fence is gagged, and the devoted wretch must perish. But even 
there the victim of such tyranny is not made to fill, by voluntary 
silence, the defects of his accusation ; for his tongue is tied, and 
therefore no advantage is taken of him by construction : it cannot 
be there said that his not speaking is ' a volume of evidence ' to 

* This passage of Lord Clonmel's charge was omitted, and, no doubt, 
designedly, in the original edition of Hamilton Rowan's trial, published in 
Dublin. See a note of the London Editor. State Triah, 179L 



J 7^2 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

, prove his guilt." After some farther observations, he thus con- 
cluded his argument — " You are standing on a narrow isthmus, that 
divides the great ocean of duration— on the one side of the past, 
on the other of the future — a ground, that, while you yet hear me, 
is washed from beneath your feet. Let me remind you, my lords, 
while your determination is yet in your power — dum versatur adhua 
intra penetralia Vestas, — that on that ocean- of the future you must 
set your judgment afloat ; and future ages will assume the same au- 
thority which you have assumed ; posterity will feel the same emo- 
tions which you have felt, when your little hearts have beaten, and 
your infant eyes have overflowed at reading the sad story of the 
suflferings of a Russel or a Sydney." 

All this has been represented as very strange, and even absurd, 
by those who would not reflect upon the state of the times, and the 
necessity which it imposed upon the advocate of addressing the pas- 
sions which he knew to be actuating his hearers, no matter to what 
order of the community they might belong. 



LIFE OF CURRAN, 173 



CHAPTER IX, 

Mr. Cuiran moves an address to the throne for an inquiry into the state ot 
the poor — Other parliamentary questions— Mr. Ponsonby's plan of re* 
form rejected— Secession of Mr. Curran and his friends — Orr*s trial — 
Finnertj's trial— Finney's Trial — The informer James O'Brien. 

In May, 1795, Mr. Curran moved an address to the throne up- 
on the distresses of Ireland, the recal of Lord Fitzvvilliam, and the 
misconduct of his majesty's ministers in their government of Ire- 
land' It was not expected by the opposition that this motion would 
be carried : their object in bringing it forward was merely to leave 
a record of iheir opinions upon the subjects contained in the ad- 
dress.* Mr. Curran prefaced his motion by a long speech, in the 



* This address, after a few prefatory clauses stating the attachment of the 
commons to his majesty's person, and the monarchical form of government, 
and their late extraordinary supplies for carrying on the present most event- 
ful war, proceeds — 

That we were the more induced to this, from a zeal for his majesty's ser- 
vice, and an attachment to Great Britain ; but accompanied with an expec- 
tation that our extraordinary grants would be justified to our constituents by 
a reform, under a patriot viceroy, of the various and manifold abuses 
that had taken place in the administration of the Irish government ; a refor- 
mation which we conceived, in the present times, and under such an in- 
crease of debt and taxes, indispensable, and which we do, therefore, most 
humbly persist to implore and expect. 

That, after the supplj' was granted and the force voted, and whilst the chief 
governor, possessing the entire confidence of both houses of parliament, 
and the approbation of all the people, was reforming abuses, and putting 
the country in a state of defence, he was suddenly and prematurely recall- 
ed, and our unparalleled efforts for the support of his majesty answered bj'^ 
the strongest marks of the resentment of his ministers. 

That, in consequence of such a proceeding, the business of government 
was interrupted, the defence of the country suspended, the unanimity, 
which had under the then lord-lieutenant existed, converted into just com- 
plaint and remonstrance, and the enei-gy, confidence, and zeal of the nation, 
so loudly called for by his majesty's ministers, were, by the conduct of 
those very ministers themselves, materially affected. 

That these their late proceedings aggravated their past system ; in com- 
plaining of which, we particularly refer to the notorious traffic of honours — 
to the removal of the troops contrary to the law, and in total disregard of the 
solemn compact with the nation and safety of the realm — to the criminal 
conduct of government respecting the Irish army — to the dishursemonts of 
sums of money, without account or authority — to the improvident grant of 
reversions, at the expense of his majesty's interest, sacrificed, for the emol- 
ument of his servants, to the conduct of his majesty's ministers in both coun- 
tries, towards his protestant and catholic subjects of Ireland, alternately 



174 ' LIFE OF CURRAN. 

course of which he emphatically warned the house of the dangers 
that impended over the public tranquillity ; but upon this, as upon 
many formeF occasions, his predictions were disregarded. " I 
know," said he, " that this is not a time when the passions of the 
public ought to be inflamed ; nor do I mean to inflame them — 
(murmurs f 7' om the other side of the house). Yes, I speak not to in- 
flame ; but I address you in order to allay the fever of the public 
mind. If I had power to warn you, I would exert that power in or- 
der to diminish the public ferment — in order to show the people 
that they have more security in your warmth than they can have in 
their own heat — that the ardour of your honest zeal may be a salu- 
tary ventilator to the ferment of your country — in order that you 
may take the people out of their own hands, and bring them with- 
in your guidance. Trust me, at this momentous crisis, a firm 
and tempered sensibility of injury would be equally honourable to 
yourselves and beneficial to the nation : trust me, if, at a time when 
every little stream is swollen into a torrent, we alone should be 
found to exhibit a smooth, and listless, and frozen surface, the fol- 
ly of the people may be tempted to walk across us ; and, whether 
they should suppose they were only walking upon ice, "or treading 
upon corruption, the rashness of the experiment might be fatal to 
OS all." 

In the beginning of the following year Mr. Gurran moved " that 
a committee should be appointed to inquire into the state of the 
lower orders of the people," to whose wretchedness he attributed 
the prevailing discontents ; but his motion was, as usual, " suffb- 
.ated by the question of adjournment." He also distinguished 
himself by his support of Mr. Grattan's amendments to the ad- 
dresses in this year, by his exertions on the question of catholic 

practising on theif passions, exciting their hope, and pK)curing their disap- 
pointment. 

That, convinced, by the benefits which we have received under his ma- 
jesty's reign, that the grievances of which we complain are as unknown to 
his niajesty as abhorrent frona his paternal and royal disposition. 

We, his Commons of Ireland, beg leave to lay ourselves at his feet, and, 
with all humility to his majesty, to prefer, on our part, and on the part of 
our constituents, this our just and necessary remonstrance against the con- 
4uct of his ministers ; and to implore his majesty that he may be graciously 
pleased to lay his commands upon his minister to second the zeal of his 
Irish parliament in his majesty's services, b}^ manifesting in future to the 
people of Ireland due regard and attention. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 17§ 

emancipation, and by his opposition to the suspension of the ha- 
beas corpus act. 

His last parliamentary effort was in the debate on Mr. William 
Brabazon Ponsonby's plan of parliamentary reform,* which inr 
eluded catholic emancipation, and was brought forward by the op- 
position as a final experiment to save Ireland from the horrors of 
the impending rebellion. By the late report of the secret commit- 
tee, it had appeared that extensive associations for treasonable ob- 
jects existed throughout the country : the administration consider- 
ed that force alone should be resorted to — the opposition were as 
decided that conciliation, and conciliation alone, would restore 
tranquillity. The ostensible objects of the conspiracy were reform 
and catholic emancipation : the administration admitted that these 
were merely pretexts, and that revolution was the real though 
covert design ; but they argued " that the house ought to make 
a stand, and say that rebellion must be put down, before the 
grievances that were made its pretext should be even discussed." 
To this it was answered by Mr. Curran, " if reform be only a pre- 
tence, and separation be the real objects of the leaders of the con- 
spiracy, confound the leaders by destroying the pretext, and take 
the followers to yourselves. You say they are 100,000 — I firmly be- 
lieve they are three times the number, — so much the better for 
you. If these seducers can attach so many followers to rebellion, 
by the hope of reform through blood, how much more readily will 
you engage them, not by the promise, but the possession, and with- 
out blood. Reform (he continued) is a necessary change of mild- 
ness for coercion : the latter has been tried, and what is its success.'* 
The convention bill was passed to punish the meetings at Dungan- 
non and those of the catholics : the government considered the 
catholic concessions as defeats that called for vengeance — and 
cruelly have they avenged them ; but did th'at act, or those whick 
followed, put down those meetings.^ the contrary was the fact; it 
most foolishly concealed them. When popular discontents are 
abroad, a wise government should put them into an hive of glass ; 
you hid them. The association at first was small — the earth seemed 

*Mayl5,1790. 



176 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

lo drink it as a rivulet ; but it only disappeared for a season : a 
tliousand streams, through the secret windings of the earth, found 
their way to one source, and swelled its waters; until at last, too 
mighty to be contained, it burst out a great river, fertilizing by its 
exundations, or terrifying by its cataracts. This was the effect of 
your penal code — it swelled sedition into rebellion. What else 
could be hoped from a system of terrorism? Fear is the most 
transient of all the passions — it is the warning that nature gives 
for self-preservation ; but when safety is unattainable, the warning 
must be useless, and nature does not therefore give it. The ad- 
ministration mistook the quality of penal laws : they were sent out 
to abolish conventicles ; but they did not pass the threshold, they 
atood centiaels at the gates. You thought that penal laws, like 
great dogs, would wag their tails to their masters, and bark only at 
tiieir enemies: you were mistaken; they turn and devour those 
they were meant to protect, and were harmless where they were 
intended to destroy. Gentlemen, I see, laugh- — I see they affect to 
be still very ignorant of the nature of fear: — this cannot last;-- • 
neither, while it does, can it be concealed :— the feeble glimmering 
of a forced smile is a light that makes the cheek look paler. Trust 
me, the times are too humanized for such systems of government — 
humanity will not execute them ; but humanity will abhor them, 
and those who wished to rule by such means. We hoped much, 
and, I doubt not, meaned w^ell by those laws ; but they have misera- 
bly failed us: it is time to try milder methods. You have tried to 
force the people : but the rage of your penal laws was a storm that 
only drove them in groups to shelter. Before it is too late, there- 
fore, try the better force of reason, and conciliate them by justice 
and humanity. Neither let us talk of innovation — the progress of 
nature is no innovation — the increase of people, the growth of the 
mind, is no innovation, unless the growth of our minds lag behind. 
If we think otherwise, and consider it an innovation to depart from 
the folly of our infancy, we should come here in our swaddling 
clothes; we should not innovate upon the dress more than the un- 
derstanding of the cradle. 

" As to the system of peace now proposed, you must take it on 
its principles ; they are simply two — the abolition of religious dis- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 17'J 

abilities, and the representation of the people. I am confident the 
effects would bie every thing to be wished; the present alarming 
discontent will vanish, the good will be separated from the ill-in- 
tentioned ; the friends of mixed government in Ireland are marty 
— every sensible man must see that it gives all the enjoyment of 
rational liberty, if the people have their due place in the state. 
This system would make us invincible against a foreign or domes- 
tic enemy ; it would make the empire strong at this important cri- 
sis ; it w^ould restore to us liberty, industry, and peace, which I am 
satisfied can never by any other means be restored." 

The counsels of peace and conciliation which Mr. Curran and 
his friends now proposed to the parliament were the last which 
they had to offer ; and finding that they were to be rejected, they 
resolved to take no farther part in deliberations, where their inter- 
ference was so unavailing. " I agree, (said Mr. Curran, in con- 
clusion) that unanimity at this time is indispensable ; the house 
seems pretty unanimous for force ; I am sorry for it, for I bode the 
worst from it : I shall retire from a scene where I can do no 
good, and where I certainly should disturb that unanimity ; I 
cannot, however, go without a parting entreaty, that men would 
reflect upon the awful responsibility in which they stand to their 
country and their conscience, before they set an example to the 
people of abandoning the constitution and the law, and resorting 
to the terrible expedient of force." 

Mr. Grattan, who followed Mr. Curran, concluded his speech by 
announcing the same intention : — " Your system is perilous in- 
deed. I speak without asperity ; I speak without resentment ; I 
speak, perhaps, my delusion, iDut it is my heartfelt conviction ; I 
speak my apprehension for the immediate state of our liberty, and 
for the ultimate state of the empire ; I see, or imagine I see, in 
this system, every thing which is dangerous to both ; I hope I am 
mistaken, at least I hope I exaggerate ; possibly I may ; if so, I 
shall acknowledge my error with more satisfaction than is usual in 
the acknowledgment of error, I cannot, however, banish from my 
memory the lesson of the American war, and yet at that time, the 
English government was at the head of Europe, and was possessed 
of resources comparatively unbroken. If that lesson has no effect 



178 



LIFE OF CURRxViX. 



on ministers, surely I can suggest nothing that will. We have of* 
fered you our measure — you will reject it ; we deprecate yours-— 
you will persevere ; having no hopes left to persuade or to dis- 
suade, and having discharged our duty, we shall trouble you no^ 
more, and aftei- this day shall not attend the House of Commons.^^ 

.A few weeks after the secession of the opposition, Mr. Grattai 
addressed a letter to the citizens of Dublin upon the part of him- 
self and the other members of the minority, to explain their motives 
in taking that step. This letter, besides being a splendid monu- 
ment of the writer's genius, is an important historical document| 
and when confronted with the reports of secret committees and^ 
similar official statements, will show w^hat an imperfect idea theyj 
convey of the real condition of the times. (See the Appendix), 



TRIAL OF MR. P. FINNERTY. 

Mr. Curran's next great professional exertion was in the defence*] 
of Mr. Finnerty, who was tried in December, 1797, for a libel om 
the government and person of the viceroy (Lord Camden). The^ 
subject of the libel was the trial and execution of a person namedi 
William Orr, \vhich had taken place a little before. Orr, who had] 
been committed on a charge of High Treason, was arraigned oi^j 
an indictment framed under the Insurrection Act, for administering] 
unlawful oaths, and convicted. ^ A motion in arrest of judgment, 
was made, in the argument upon which Mr. Curran, who was his 
leading counsel, is said to have displayed as much legal ability and 
affecting eloquence as upon any occasion of his life. This argu- 
ment is so imperfectly reported as to be unworthy of insertion. It 
contains, however, one striking example of that peculiar idiom in 
which he discussed the most technical questions ; in contending 
that the Act, under which his client was tried, had expired, he ob-* 
serves, *' the mind of the judge is the repository of thejaw that 
does exist, not of the law that did exist ; nor does the mercy and 
justice of our law recognize so disgraceful an office, as that of a 
judge becoming a sort of administrator to a dead statute^ and col- 
lecting the debts of blood that were due to it in its lifetime,'^'* 

Another of his arguments for arresting the judgment was, " that 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 179 

the state had no right to wage a piratical war against the subject 
«nder false colours :" — that Orr's oifence, (supposing the informer 
who gave evidence against him to have sworn truly) amounted to 
High Treason, and that he should therefore have been indicted un- 
der the constitutional statute relating to that crime, from which the 
accused derive so many privileges of defence. It may be necessa- 
ry to inform some readers, that when acts of High Treason are 
made merely /e/onz/ by a particular statute, the persons under trial 
lose, among other advantages, the benefit of their counsel's address 
to the jury, to which, had they been indicted for High Treason, 
they would have been entitled. Upon such occasions, when Mr. 
Curran, in addressing the court upon questions of law, happened 
to let fall any observations upon the general merits of the case, he 
4iad to sustain the reproach of " attempting to insinuate a speech to 
the jury." 

But all his efforts were unavailing ; his legal objections were 
overruled by the bench ; and in answer to what he had addressed 
to the feelings of the court, the presiding judge, Lord Yelverton, 
from whose mind classical associations were never absent, advert- 
ed to a passage in the history of the Roman commonwealth, where, 
after the expulsion of the Tarquins, it was attempted by the Patri- 
cians to restore royalty ; and the argument made use of was, " that 
a government by laws was stern and cruel, inasmuch as laws had 
neither hearts to feel, nor ears to hear ; whereas government by 
kings was merciful, inasmuch as the sources of humanity and ten- 
derness were open to entreaty."* " For my part, (added his 
Lordship) I am acting under a government by laws, and am bound 
to speak the voice of the law, which has neither feeling nor pas- 



sions." 



But this excellent and feeling judge soon showed how little of 
legal insensibility belonged to his own nature. When he came to 

* Regjem hominem esse, a quo impetres ubi jus, ubi injuria opus sit — 
esse graliae locum, esse beneficio, et irasci et io^noscere posie — inter amicnin 
atque inimicum discrimen nosse. Leges rem surdam, inexorabiiem esse, 
salubriorem melioremque inopi, quam potenti — nihil Jaxamenti nee venise 
habere, si modum excesseris. — Tit. Liv. lib. 2, 

Lord Yelverton was considered as one of the most accomplished classical 
scholars of his time. An unfinished trarrslation of Livy (his fav^niite his 
torian) remains among bis paper:?. 



180 ^^^ ^^ CURRAN. 

pronounce sentence of death upon the prisoner, He wiSs so affected 
as to be scarcely audible, and the fatal words were no sooner con- 
cluded than he burst into tears, and sinking his head between his 
hands, continued for many minutes in that attitude of honourable 
emotion. 

The prisoner was recommended by the jury to mercy, but, after 
receiving no less than three respites, was finally executed. He 
died, protesting his innocence ; and though such a declaration be 
very doubtful evidence of the fact, (for who, about to suffer for a 
political crime, would not prefer to be remembered as a martyr), 
still there were, in the case of Orr, some corroborating circumstan- 
ces, which render it a matter of surprise and regret that they should 
have been disregarded. His previous life and character had been 
irreproachable : subsequent to his trial, it appeared that the inform- 
er, upon whose evidence he had been convicted, had, according to 
his own confession, perjured himself on a former occasion, and had 
been in other particulars a person of infamous conduct and reputa- 
tion ; but above all, the circumstances under which the verdict was, 
found against Orr pointed him out, if not as an object constitution- 
ally entitled to mercy, at least as one to whom it would have been 
an act of salutary mildness to have extended it. The jury had 
continued from seven o'clock in the evening till six on the following 
morning considering their verdict ; in the interval, spirituous liquor 
had been introduced into the jury-room, and intimidation used to 
such as hesitated to concur with the majority. To these latter 
facts two of the jury made a solemn affidavit in open court, before 
the judge who tried the cause. 

Upon these proceedings, a very severe letter of remonstrance te 
^ C the viceroy appeared in the Press newspaper, of which Mr. Fin- 
nerty was the publisher ; and the letter being deemed a libel, th© 
publisher was brought to immediate trial. 

Mr. Currants address to the jury in this case must be considered, 
if not the finest, at least the most surprising specimen of his oratori- 
cal powers. He had had no time for preparation ; it was not till 
a few minutes before the cause commenced that his brief was hand- 
ed to him. During the progress of the trial he had occasion to 
speak at unusual length to questions of law that arose upon the evi- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. -[gj 

dence; so that his speech to the jury could necessarily be no other 
than a sudden extemporaneous exertion : and it was, perhaps, a 
secret and not unjustifiable feeling of pride at having so acquitted 
himself upon such an emergency that inchned his own mind to prefer 
this to any of his other efforts. 

The following is his description of the scenes which attended and 
followed the trial of William Orr. 

" Let me beg of you for a moment to suppose that any one of you 
had been the writer of this strong and severe animadversion upon 
the lord lieutenant, and that you had been the witness of that 
lamentable and never to be forgotten catastrophe ; let me suppose 
that you had known the charge upon which Mr. Orr was appre- 
hended — the charge of abjuring that bigotry which had torn and 
disgraced his country, of pledging himself to restore the people to 
their place in the constitution, and of binding himself never to be 
the betrayer of his fellow-labourers in that enterprise ; that you 
had seen him upon that charge torn from his industry and confined 
in a gaol ; that through the slow and lingering progress of twelve 
tedious months, you had seen him confined in a dungeon, shut out 
from the common use of air and of his own limbs ; that day after 
day you had marked the unhappy captive, cheered by no sound but 
the cries of his family or the clanking of his chains ; that you had 
seen him at last brought to his trial ; that you had seen the vile and 
perjured informer deposing against his life ; that you had seen the 
drunken, and worn out, and terrified jury, give in a verdict of death ; 
that you had seen the same jury, when their returning sobriety had 
brought back their reason, prostrate themselves before the humanity 
©f the bench, and pray that the mercy of the crown might save their 
characters from the reproach of an involuntary crime, their con- 
sciences from the torture of eternal self-condemnation, and their 
souls from the indelible stain of innocent blood. Let me suppose 
that you had seen the respite given, and the- contrite and honest 
recommendation transmitted to that seat where mercy was presumed 
to dwell : that new and before unheard of crimes are discovered 
against the informer; that the royal mercy seems to relent; that a 
new respite is sent to the prisoner; that time is taken to see 
' whether mercy could be extended or not ;' that after that period 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 

of lingering deliberation had passed, a third respite is transmitted t, 
that the unhappy captive himself feels the cheering hope of being 
restored to a family that he had adored, to a character that he had J 
never stained, and to a country that he had ever loved; that you 
had seen his wife and his children upon their knees, giving those, 
tears to gratitude which their locked and frozen hearts had refused i 
to anguish and despair, and imploring the blessings of eternal Prov- 
idence upon his head who had graciously spared the father and re-.|j 
stored him to his children : 

* Alas ! 
Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold, 
Nor friends, nor sacred home I' 



'ii( 



Often did the weary dove return to the window of his litd( 
ark ; but the olive leaf was to him no sign that the waters had sub- 
sided. No seraph Mercy unbars his dungeon, and leads him fortkj 
to light and life ; but the minister of Death hurries him to the seem 
of suffering and of shame : where, unmoved by the hostile arrayl 
©f artillery and armed men collected together to secure, or to insult, 
or to disturb him, he dies with a solemn declaration of his inno<| 
cence, and utters his last breath in a prayer for the liberty of hit 
country. 

*' Let me now ask you, if any of you had addressed the public 
ear upon so foul and monstrous a subject, in what language wouh 
you have conveyed the feelings of horror and indignation f Woulc 
you have stooped to the meanness of qualified complaint ? Woul( 
you have checked your feelings to search for courtly and gaud^ 
language ? Would you have been mean enough — but 1 intreal 
your pardon; 1 have already told you I do not think meanly oj 
you. Had I thought so meanly of you, I could not suffer my min( 
to commune with you as it has done : had I thought you that bsis^ 
and servile instrument, attuned by hope and fear into discord an( 
falsehood, from whose vulgar string no groan of suffering couh 
vibrate, no voice of integrity or honour could speak, let me hon- 
esdy tell you I should have scorned to fling my hand across it; 
should have left it to a fitter minstrel ; if I do not, therefore, grossly 
err in ray opinion of you. you could invent no language upon sucl 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 183 

.a subject as this, that must not lag behind the rapidity of your 
feelings, and that must not disgrace those feelings if it attempted to 
describe them." 

The distracted condition of Ireland, at this unfortunate period, 
may be collected from the following description. To the general 
reader of Mr. Curran's speeches, the frequent recurrence of so 
painful a theme must diminish their attraction; but it was too inti- 
mately connected with his subjects to be omitted ; and as has been 
previously remarked, the scenes which he daily witnessed had so 
sensible an influence upon the style of his addresses to juries, that 
some advertence to them here becomes indispensable, 

*' The learned counsel has asserted that the paper which he pro- 
secutes is only part of a system formed to misrepresent the state of 
Ireland and the conduct of its government. Do you not therefore 
discover that his object is to procure a verdict to sanction the par- 
liaments of both countries in refusing an inquiry into your griev- 
ances? Let me ask you then, are you prepared to say, upon your 
oath, that those measures of coercion which are daily practised, 
are absolutely necessary, and ought to be continued f It is not 
upon Finnerty you are sitting in judgment ; but you are sitting in 
judgment upon the lives and liberties of the inhabitants of more 
than half of Ireland. You are to say that it is a foul proceeding to 
condemn the government of Ireland ; that it is a foul act, founded 
in foul motives, and originating in falsehood and sedition ; that it 
is an attack upon a government under which the people are pros- 
perous and happy, that justice is administered with mercy ; that 
the statements made in Great Britain are false — are the effusions of 
party or of discontent ; that all is mildness and tranquillity; that 
there are no burnings — no transportations ; that you never travel 
by the light of conflagrations; that the jails are not crowded month 
after month, from which prisoners are taken out, not for trial, but 
for embarkation ! These are the questions upon which, I say, you 
must virtually decide. It is in vain that the counsel for the crown 
may tell you that I am misrepresenting the case ; that I am en- 
deavouring to raise false fears, and to take advantage of your pas- 
sions ; that the question is, whether this paper be a libel or not, and 
that the circumstances of the country have nothing to do with it% 



134 I-IFE OF CURRAN. 

Such assertions must be vain : the statement of the counsel for the 
crown has forced the introduction of those important topics ; and I 
appeal to your "own hearts whether the country is misrepresented, 
and whether the government is misrepresented. I tell you there- 
fore, gentlemen of the jury, it is not with respect to Mr. Orr or Mr. 
Finnerty that your verdict is now sought ; you are called upon, on 
your oaths, to say that the government is wise and merciful ; the 
people prosperous and happy ; that military law ought to be con- 
tinued; that the constitution could not with safety be restored to 
Ireland; and that the statements of a contrary import by your ad- 
vocates in either country are libellous and false. I tell you, these 
are the questions ; and I ask you, if you can have the front to give 
the expected answer in the face of a community who know the 
country as well as you do. Let me ask you how you could recon- 
cile with such a verdict, the gaols, the tenders, the gibbets, the con- 
flagrations, the murders, the proclamations, that we hear of every 
day in the streets, and see every day in the country ? What are the 
processions of the learned counsel himself, circuit after Circuit ? 
Merciful God! what is the state of Ireland, and where shall you 
find the wretched inhabitant of this land? You may find him per- 
haps in a gaol, the only place of security, I had almost said of ordi- 
nary habitation ! If you do not find him there, you may see hira 
%ing with his family from the flames of his own dwelling — lighted 
to his dungeon by the conflagration of his hovel ; or you may find 
his bones bleaching on the green fields of his country ; or you may 
find him tossing on the surface of the ocean, and mingling his groans 
with those tempests, less savage than his prosecutors, that drift him 
to a returnless distance from his family and his home, without 
charge, or trial, or sentence. Is this a foul misrepresentation ? Or 
©an you, with these facts ringing in your ears, and staring in your 
face, say, upon your oaths, they do not exist? You are called upon, 
in defiance Of shame, of truth*, of honour, to deny the sufferings 
under which you groan, and to flatter the prosecution that tramples 
you under foot. Gentlemen, I am not accustomed to speak of cir- 
curastanees of this kind, and though familiarized as I have been to 
them, when I come to speak of them, my power fails me, my voice » 
dies v/ithin me; I am not able to call upoayou : it is now I ought to 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 185 

Rave strength ; it is now I ought to have energy and voice, but I 
have none; I am like the unfortunate state of the country, perhaps 
like you. This is the time in which I ought to speak, if I can, or 
be dumb for ever; in which, if you do not speak as you ought — 7/ou 
ought to be dumb for ever." 

When Mr. Curran came to comment upon that part of the pub- 
lication under trial, which stated that informers were broucrht for- 
ward by the hopes of remuneration — " Is that, said he, a foul asser- 
tion ? or will you, upon your oaths, say to the sister country, that 
there are no such abominable instruments of destruction as inform- 
ers used in the state prosecutions in Ireland ? Let me honestly ask 
you, what do you feel when in my hearing — when, in the face of 
this audience, you are called upon to give a verdict that every man 
of us, and every man of you, know, by the testimony of your own 
eyes, to be utterly and absolutely false ? I speak not now of the 
public proclamations for informers with a promise of secrecy and 
extravagant reward* — 1 speak not of those unfortunate wretches, 
who have been so often transferred from the table to the dock, and 
from the dock to the pillory — I speak of what your own eyes have 
seen, day after day, during the course of this commission, while 
you attended this court — the number of horrid miscreants who ac- 
knowledged, upon their oaths, that they had come from the seat of 
government — from the very chambers of the Castle (where they 
had been worked upon, by the fear of death and the hopes of com- 
pensation, to give evidence against their fellows) — that the mild, 
the wholesome, and merciful councils of this government are hold- 
en over those catacombs of living death, where the wretch, that is 
buried a man, lies till his heart has time to fester and dissolve, and 
is then dug up a witness. Is this a picture created by an hag-rid- 
den fancy, or is it fact? Have you not seen him, after his resur- 
rection from that tomb, make his appearance upon your table, the 
living image of life and death, and the supreme arbiter of both? 
Have you not marked, when he entered, how the stormy wave of 
the multitude retired at his approach? Have you not seen how the 
human heart bowed to the awful supremacy of his power, in the un- 
dissembled homage of deferential horror? How his glance, like 
the lightning of Heaven, seemed to rive the body of thp. arcused, 



Igg LIFE OF CURRA!\. 

and mark it for the grave, while his voice warned the devoted 
wretch of woe and death — a death which no innocence can escape, 
no art elude, no force resist, no antidote prevent ? There was an 
antidote — a juror's oath ! But even that adamantine chain, which 
bound the integrity of man to the throne of eternal justice, is solv- 
ed and molten in the breath which issues from the mouth of the in- 
former. Conscience swings from her moorings 5 the appalled and 
affrighted juror speaks what his soul abhors, and consults his own 
safety in the surrender of the victim- — 

— - et quas sibi quisque timebat 
Unius in miseri exitium conversa tulere. 

Informers are worshipped in the temple of justice, even as the devil 
has been worshipped by Pagans and savages — even so in this 
wicked country, is the informer an object of judicial idolatry — • 
even so is he soothed by the music of human groans — even so is he 
placated and incensed by the fumes and by the blood of human sa- 
crifices." 

It is some relief tq turn from these descriptions, (the truth of 
which any who may doubt it, will find authenticated by the histo- 
rian,) to the attestation which the advocate bore (and which he was 
always ready to bear) to the honourable and dignified demeanour of 
a presiding judge.* " You are upon a great forward ground, with 
the people at your back, and the government in your front. You 
have neither the disadvantages nor the excuses of juries a century 
ago. No, thank God ! never was there a stronger characteristic 
distinction between those times, upon which no man can reflect 
without horror, and the present. You have seen this trial conduct- 
ed with mildness and patience by the court. We have now no Jef- 
feries, with scurvy and vulgar conceits, to browbeat the prisoner 
and perplex his counsel. Such has been the improvement of man- 
ners, and so calm the confidence of integrity, that during the de- 
fence of accused persons, the judges sit quietly, and show them- 
selves worthy of their situation, by bearing, with a mild and merci- 
ful patience, the little extravagancies of the bar, as you should bear 

* The Hon. William Downes. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 187 

with the little extravagancies of the press. Let me then turn your 
eyes to that pattern of mildness in the bench. The press is your 
advocate ; bear with its excess, bear with every thing but its bad 
intention. If it comes as a villanous slanderer, treat it as such ; 
but if it endeavour to raise the honour and glory of your country, 
remember that you reduce its power to a nonentity, if you stop its 
animadversions upon public measures. You should not check the 
eflforts of genias, nor damp the ardour of patriotism. In vain will 
you desire the bird to soar, if you meanly or madly steal from it its 
plumage. Beware lest, under the pretence of bearing down the 
licentiousness of the press, you extinguish it altogether. Beware 
how you rival the venal ferocity of those miscreants, who rob a 
printer of the means of bread, and claim from deluded royalty the 
reward of integrity and allegiance."* 



TRIAL OF PATRICK FINNEY, 

Mr. Curran's defence of Patrick Finney (who was brought to 
trial in January, 1 798, on a charge of High Treason) if not the 
most eloquent, was at least the most successful of his efforts at the 
bar. This may be also considered as the most important cause 
that he ever conducted, as far as the number of his clients could 
render it so ; for in addition to the prisoner at the bar, he was vir- 
tually defending fifteen others, against whom there existed the 
same charge, and the same proof, and whose fates would have im- 
mediately followed had the evidence against Finney prevailed. — 
The principal witness for the crown in this case was an informer, 
named James O'Brien, a person whom his testimony upon this 
trial, and his subsequent crimes, have rendered notorious in Ire- 
land. The infamy of this man's previous life and morals, and im- 
probability and inconsistencies of his story, were so satisfactorily 
proved to the jury, that, making an effort of firmness and humanity 
very unusual in those days, they acquitted Finney ; and, at the 

* The jury found a verdict against the traverser. The above extracts 
are taken from a fuller report of Mr. Curran's speech upon this occasion 
than that which is to be found in the published collection. 



188 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

next sitting of the court, the fifteen other prisoners were in conse- 
quence discharged from their indictments. 

In speaking of Finney's acquittal, it would be an act of injustice 
to attribute it to the ability of Mr. Curran alone. He was assist- 
ed, as he was upon so many other occasions of emergency, by Mr. 
M'Nally,* a gentleman in whom the client has always found a 
zealous intrepid advocate, and in whom Mr. Curran, from his 
youth to his latest hour, possessed a most affectionate, unshaken 
and disinterested friend. An instance of Mr. Curran's confidence 
in the talents of his colleague occurred upon this trial : the cir- 
cumstance too may not be without interest, as an example of the 
accidents which influence the most important questions. 

The only mode of saving their client was by impeaching the 
credit of O'Brien. It appeared in their instructions that they had 
some, though not unexceptionable, evidence of his having extort- 
ed money, by assuming the character of a revenue officer. 

Some extracts from the cross-examination of this witness shall 

, be inserted as too singular, on many accounts, to be omitted. It 

should be observed, that Mr. Ctirran, upon this occasion, departed 

in some measure from his ordinary method of confounding the per- 

I jurer. Instead of resorting to menace or ridicule, he began by af- 

Ifecting a tone of respect and even submission ; and, by thus en- 

'couraging O'Brien's insolence, threw him off his guard, and led 

* Leonard M'Nally, Esq. for many years an eminent Irish barrister, 
and long since known to the English public as the author of Robin Hood, 
and other successful dramatic pieces, the productions of his earlier days. — 
Among many endearing traits in this gentleman's private character, his de- 
voted attachment to Mr. Curran's person and fame, and, since his death, to 
the interests of his memory, has been conspicuous. The writer of this can- 
Bot advert to the ardour and tenderness with which he cherishes the latter, 
without emotions of the most lively and respectful gratitude. To Mr. Mc. 
Nally he has to express many obligations for the zeal with which he has as- 
sisted in procuring and supplying materials for the present work. The in- 
troduction of these private feelings is not entirely out of place — it can nev- 
er be out of place to record an example of stedfastness in friendship. For 
three and forty years Mr. M'Nally was the friend of the subject of these 
pages ; and during that long period, uninfluenced by any obligation, more 
than once, at his own personal risk in repelling the public calumnies which 
Mr. Curran's political conduct had provoked, he performed the duties of 
the relation with the most uncompromising and romantic fidelity. To state 
this is a debt of justice to the dead ; the survivor has an ampler reward 
than any passing tribute of this sort can confer, in the recollection that du- 
ring their long intercourse not even an unkind look ever passed between 
them. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. Jgy 

him on more completely to develope his own character to the ju- 
ry:— 

James O^Brien, cross-examined hy Mr, Curran. 

Q. Pray, Mr. O'Brien, whence came you ? 

A. Speak in a way I will understand you. 

Q. Do you not understand me ? 

A. Whence ? I am here. Do you mean the place I came from? 

Q. By your oath, do you not understand it ? 

A. I partly censure it now. 

Q. Now that you partly censure the question, answer it. Where 
did you come from ? 

A. From the Castle. 

Q. Do you live there? 

A. I do while I am there. 

Q. You are welcome, sir, to practise your wit upon me. Where 
did you live before you came to Dublin ^ 

A. In the Queens county. 

Q. What way of life were you engaged in before you came to 
Dublin ? 

A. I had a farm of land which my father left me; and I set it, 
and afterwards sold it, and came to Dublin to follow business I 
learned before my father's death. I served four years to Mr. La- 
touche of Marley. 

Q. To what business ? 

A. A gardener. 

Q. Were you an excise officer f 

A. No. 

Q. Nor ever acted as one ^ 

A. I don't doubt but I may have gone of messages for one. 

Q. Who was that ? 

A. A man of the name of Fitzpatrick. 

Q. He is an excise officer ? 

A. So I understand. 

Q. What messages did you go for him ? 

A. For money when he was lying on a sick bed. 



190 ^If'E OF CURRAN. 

Q. To whom? 

A. To several of the people in his walk. 

Q. But you never pretended to be an officer yourself? 

A. As I have been walking with him, and had clean clothes on 
me, he might have said to the persons he met, that I was an excise 
officer. 

Q. But did you never pretend to be an officer? 

A. I never did pretend to be an officer. 

Q. Did you ever pass yourself for a revenue officer ? 

A. I answered that before. 

Q. I do not want to give you any unnecessary trouble, sir ; treat 
me with the same respect I shall treat you. I ask you again, did 
you^ever pass yourself for a revenue officer ? 

A. Never, barring when I was in drink, and the like. 

Q. Then, when you have been drunk, you have passed as a 
revenue officer ? 

A. I do not know what I have done when I was drunk. 

Q. Did you at any time, drunk or sober, pass yourself as a rev- 
enue officer ? 

A. Never, when sober. 

Q. Did you, drunk, or sober ? 

A- I cannot say what I did when I was drunk. 

Q. Can you form a belief — I ask you upon your oath — you are 
upon a solemn occasion — ^^Did you pass yourself for a revenue of- 
ficer ? 

A. I cannot say what happened to me when I was drunk. 

Q. What ! Do you say you might have done it when you were 
drunk ? 

A. I cannot recollect what passed in my drink. 

Q. Are you in the habit of being drunk ? • 

A. Not now ; but some time back I was. 

Q. Very fond of drink ? 

A. Very fond of drink. 

Q. Do you remember to whom you passed yourself for a rev- 
enue officer ? 

A. I do not. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 191 

Q. Do you know the man who keeps the Red Cow, of the name 
of Cavanagh ? 

A. Where does he live ? 

Q. Do you not know yourself? 

A. There is one Red Cow above the Fox and Geese. 

Q. Did you ever pass yourself as a revenue officer there ? 

A, I never was there but with Filzpatrick ; and one day there 
had been a scuffle, and he abused Fitzpatrick and threatened him ; 
1 drank some whiskey there, and paid for it, and went to Fitzpat- 
rick and told him, and I summoned Cavanagh, 

Q. For selling spirits without licence ? 

A. I did, and compromised the business. 

Q. By taking money and not prosecuting him ? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Did you put money into your own pocket by that ? ' 

A. I did. 

Q. But you swear you never passed yourself for a revenue offi- 
cer ? 

A. Barring when I was drunk. 

Q» Were you drunk when you summoned Cavanagh ? 

A. No. 

Q. When you did not prosecute him ? 

A. No. 

Q. When you put his money into your pocket ? 

A. No. 

Q. Do you know a man of the name of Patrick Lamb? 

A. I do not ; but if you brighten my memory, I may recollect. 

Q. Did you ever tell any man you were a supernumerary, and 
that your walk was Rathfarnham and Tallaght ? 

A. I never did, except when I was drunk ; but I never did any 
thing but what was honest when I was sober. 

Q. Do you believe you did say it ? 

A. I do not know what I might have said when I was drunk# 
You know when a man is walking with an exciseman, he gets a 
glass at every house. 

Mr. Curran. I know no such thing, never having walked with 
an exciseman. 



192 UFE OF CURRAN. 

Witness. Then you may know it. 

Q. Do you know any man passing by the name, or called Pati- 
rick Lamb ? 

A. Not that I recollect, upon my word, 

Q. Upon your oath f 

A, I do not recollect ; I mean to tell every thing against myself 
as against any other. 

Q. Do you know a person of the name of Margartt Moore ? 

A. Where does she live ? Is she married ? 

Q. She lives near Stradbally. Do you know her ? 

A. I know her well — I thought it might be another. I was court* 
ing a woman of that name before my marriage. 

Q. Did you come to Dublin before her or after? 

A. I was in Dublin before I knew her. 

Q. Did you get a decree against her ? 

A. 1 did get a summons for money she owed me. 

Q. Were you taken to the Court of Conscience by her ? 

A. No. (Contradicted by the evidence on the defence.) 

TP ^ «nr Tf <flP cp *P 

Q. When you met Hyland, were you an United Irishman ? 

A. Always united to every honest man. 

Q. Were you an United Irishman ^ 

A. Never sworn* 

Q. Were you in any manner an United Irishman before that day ^ 

A. Never sworn in before that day. 

Q. Were you in any manner ? 

A. Don't I tell you that I was united to every honest man f 

Q. Do you believe you are answering my question ? 

A. I do. 

Q. Were you ever in any society of United Irishmen before 
that day ? 

A. I do not at all know but I may, but without my knowledge : 
they might be in the next box to me, or in the end of the seat with 
me, and I not know them. 

Q. Were you ever in a society of United Irishmen but that day t 

A* I was since, 

Q. Were you ever of their meetings, or did you know any thing 
of their business before that dav ? 



LIFE OF CURRAN. \g^ 

A. No ; but I have heard of the defender's business. 

Q. Were you of their society ? 

A. No ; but when they came to my father's house, I went to Ad- 
miral Cosbv's and kept guard there, and threatened to shoot any 
of them that would come j one Connelly told me 1 was to be muf- 
dered for this expression. 

Q. Hyland made signs to you in the street ? 

A. He did. 

Q. Did you answer them? 

A. No. 

Q. Why did you not ? 

A. Because I did not know how. 

Q. Then is your evidence this, that you went into the house ia 
order to save your life ? 

A. I was told that I might lose my life before I went half a street 
if I did not. 

Q. Then it was from the fear of being murdered before you 
should go half a street, that you went in to be an United Irishman? 

A. You have often heard of men being murdered in the business. 

Q. Do you believe that ? 

A. 1 do: it is common through the country; I have read the 
proclamations upon it, and you may have done so too. 

Q. How soon, after you were sworn, did you see the magistrate ? 

A. I was sworn upon the 25th, and upon the 28th I was brought 
to Lord Portarlington, and in the interval of the two days, Hyland 
was with me and dined with me. 

Q. Why did you not go the next day ? 

A. Because I did not get clear of them, and they might murder 
me. 

Q. Where did you sleep the first night after ? 

A. At my own place — 1 was very full — very drunk. 

Q. Did either of them sleep there ? 

A. No. 

Q. Where did you live f 

A. In Keven-street, among some friends good to the same cause. 

Q. Where did you see Hyland the next day ? 
25 



^94 L^-^E ^^ CURRAN. 

A. He came to me next morning before I was out of bed, and 
stayed all day and dined ; we drank full in the evening. 

Q. What became of you the next day ? 

A. Hyland came early again, and stayed all day. I was after 
getting two guineas from my brother. I was determined to see it 
out, to know their conspiracies after I was sworn. 

Q. Then you meant to give evidence ? 

A. I never went to a meeting that I did not give an account of it. 

Q. Do you know Charles Clarke of Blue Bell ? 

A. I have heard of such a man. 

Q. You do not know him f 

A. I do : I do not mean to tell a lie. 

Q. You did not know him at first ? 

A. There are many men of the name of Clarke ; I did not know 
but it might be some other. It did not immediately come into 
my memory. 

Q. You thought it might be some other Clarke ? 

A. There is a Clarke came in to me yesterday. 

Q. Did you ever get money from Clarke, of Blue Bell, as an ex- 
cise officer ? 

A. I got 3s. 3d. from him not to tell Fitzpatrick : he did not know 
me, and I bought spirits there ; and seeing me walk with an excise- 
man, he was afraid I would tell of him, and he gave me 3s, 2d. 

Q. And you put it into your pocket ? 

A. To be sure. 

^ * * ff * T^ *; * 

Q. Did you pass yourself as a revenue officer u pon him 

A. No. 

Q. You swear that f 

A. I do. 

Q» You know a man of the name of Edward Purcell .? 

A. That is the man that led me into every thing. He has fig- 
ured among United Irishmen. He got about 40/. of their money 
and went oiF. He has been wrote to several times. 

Q. How came you to know him ? 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 195 

A. Through the friendship of Fitzpatrick. He had Fitzpatnck's 
wife, as a body might say, having another man's wife. 

Q. He made you acquainted? 

A. 1 saw him there, and Fitzpatrick well contented, 

Q. Did you ever give him a recipe ? 

A. I did. 

Q. Was it for money ? 

A. No. 

Q. What was it? 

A. It was partly an order, where Hyland, he, and I, hoped to he 
together. It was a pass-word 1 gave him to go to Hyland to buy 
light gold that I knew was going to the country. 

Q. Did you ever give him any other recipe ? 

A. I do not know but I might ; we had many dealings. 

Q. Had you many dealings in recipes ? 

A. In recipes ? 

Q. I mean recipes to do a thing ; as, to make a pudding, &c. 
Did you give him recipes of that nature ? 

A. 1 do not know but I might give him recipes to do a great num* 
ber of things. 

Q. To do a great number of things ? What are they ? 

A. Tell me the smallest hint, and I will tell the truth. 

Q. Upon that engagement I will tell you. Did you ever give 
him a recipe to turn silver into gold, or copper into silver? 

A. Yes ; for turning copper into silver. 

Q. You have kept your word ? 

A. I said I would tell every thing against myself. 

Q. Do you consider that against yourself? 

A. I tell you the truth : I gave him a recipe for making copper 
money like silver money. 

Q, What did you give it him for ? Did he make use of it ? Was 
it to protect his copper from being changed that you did it? 

A. He was very officious to make things in a light easy way, 
without much trouble, to make his bread light : but 1 did it more 
in fun than profit. 

Q. You did not care how much coin he made by it ? 



X96 LJFE ^^ CURRAN. 

A. I did not care how much coin he made by it : he might put it 
upon the market cross. 

Q. Do you say you do not care how many copper shillings hej 
made ? 

A. I did not care whether he made use of it ot not. 

Q. Upon your solemn oath, you say that you did not care hoi 
many base shillings he made in consequence of the recipe you gav< 
him? 

A. I did not care how many he told of it, or what he did with itJ 

Q. Had you never seen it tried ? 

A. No, I never saw the recipe I gave him tried ; but I saw otjbei 
tried. 

Q. For making copper look like silver ? 

A. To be sure. 

Q. Do you recollect whether you gave him half-a-erown, upoi 
which that recipe was tried ? 

A. I never saw it tried : but I gave him a bad half crown. I di( 

not give it him in payment ; I did it mor^ to humbug hifli than ^nj 

thing else. 

* * ^v ^ 

Q. Do you know Mr. Roberts ? 
A. What Mr. Roberts ? 

Q. Mr. Arthur Roberts of Stradbally .'' 
A. I do. 

Q. Did you ever talk to any person about his giving a charaetei 
of you f 

A. He could not give a bad character of me. 

Q. Did you ever tell any person about his giving you a charac^ 
ter.? 

A. I say now, in the hearing of the court and jury, that I heart 
of his being summoned against me ; and, unless he would forsweai 
himself, he could not give me a bad character. 

Q. Did you ever say you would do any thing against him ? 

A. I said I would settle him ; but do you know how ^ There was 
matter about an auction that I would tell of him. 

Q. Had you a weapon in your hand at the time ? 

A. I believe I had a sword. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 197 

Q. And a pistol f 

A. Yes, 

Q. And you had them in your hand at the time you made the 
declaration ? 

A. I knew he was a government man ; ^nd I would not do any 
thing to him in the way of assassination. 

While Mr. Curran was cross-examining O'Brien upon the point 
of his assuming the character of a revenue officer, the prisoner's 
agent accidentally heard, from some of the by-standers, that there 
was a man residing at the distance of a few miles from Dublin, whose 
testimony would place beyond a doubt that O'Brien was perjuring 
himself in the answers that he returned. A chaise was immediate- 
ly despatched, to bring up this person ; and, in the interval, it wa§ 
proposed by Mr. Curran, that he, who, as senior, was to have com- 
menced the prisoner's defence, should reserve himself for the speech 
to evidence, and that his colleague should state the case, and continue 
speaking as long as he could find a syllable to say, so as to give time 
to the chaise to return before the trial should be over. The latter, 
in whose character there wa« as little of mental as of personal timi- 
dity, accepted the proposal without hesitation, and for once belying 
the maxim that " brevity is the soul of wit," produced an oration so 
skilfully voluminous, that, by the time it was concluded, which was 
not until his physical strength was utterly exhausted, the evening 
was so far advanced, that the Court readily consented to a tempo- 
rary adjournment, for the purpose of refreshment ; and before it 
resumed its sitting, the material witness for the prisoner had arrived. 

For this important service rendered to their cause, Mr. Curran, 
in his address to the jury, paid his colleague a tribute, to which, 
as a man and an advocate, he was so well entitled. When, in the 
commencement of his speech, he alluded to the statement of his 
friend, and expressed " his reluctance to repeat any part of it, for 
fear of weakening it," he turned round to him, threw his arm affec- 
tionately over his shoulder, and, with that pathetic fervour of accent 
so peculiarly his own, addressed him thus : *' My old and excellent 
friend, I have long known and respected the honesty of your heart, 
but never, until this occasionj was I acquainted with the extent of 



198 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

your abilities. I am not in the habit of paying compliments where 
they are undeserved." Tears fell from Mr. Curran as he hung 
over his friend, and pronounced these few and simple words ; and, 
however unimposing they may appear in the repetition, it cer- 
tainly was not the part of his defence of Finney that touched the jury 
the least. 

His speech in this case (particularly in the imperfect report of it 
that has appeared) does not contain many passages calculated to 
delight in the closet. It is chiefly occupied in developing the atro- 
cities of the detestable O'Brien; and this object he aceomplished 
with signal success. That wretch, who had, in the early part of 
the trial, comported himself with so much triumphant insolence, was 
for a moment appalled by Mr. Curran's description of his villanies, 
and by the indignant fury of his glances. He was observed palpa- 
bly shrinking before the latter, and taking shelter in the crowd 
which thronged the court. The advocate did not fail to take ad- 
vantage of such a circumstance. " What was the evidence of the 
innocent, unlettered, poor farmer Cavanagh; pursuing the even 
tenor of his way in the paths of honest industry, he is in the act of 
fulfilling the decree of his Maker — he is earning his bread by the 
sweat of his brov/, when this villain, less pure than the arch-fiend 
who brought this sentence of laborious action on mankind, enters 
the habitation of peace and honest industry; and, not content with 
dipping his tongue in perjury, robs the poor man of two guineas. 
Where is O'Brien now.^ — Do you wonder that he is afraid of my 
eye? — that he has buried himself in the crowd? — that he crept un- 
der the shade of the multitude whc. this witness would have disen-. 
tangled his evidence? Do you not feel that he was appalled with 
horror, by that more piercing and penetrating eye that looks upon 
him, and upon me, and upon us all ? At this moment even the bold 
and daring villany of O'Brien stood abashed; he saw the eye of 
Heaven in that of an innocent and injured man; perhaps the feel- 
ing was consummated by a glance from the dock — his heart bore 
testimony to his guilt, and he fled for the same. Do you know 
him, gentlemen of the jury? — Are you acquainted with James 
O'Brien? If you are, let him come forward from that crowd where 
he has hid himself, and claim you by a look." 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 199 

The religious character of Mr. Curran's addresses to juries, du- 
ping these convulsed times, has been already adverted to ; of this 
the conclusion of his defence of Finney affords a striking ex- 
' ample ; — 

" This is the great experiment of the informers of Ireland, to as- 
certain how far they can carry on a traffic in human blood. This can- 
nibal informer, this demon, O'Brien, greedy after human gore, has 
fifteen other victims in reserve, if from your verdict he receives the 
unhappy man at the bar — tifteen more of your fellow-citizens are 
now in gaol, depending on the fate of the unfortunate prisoner, 
and on the same blasted and perjured evidence of O'Brien. Be 
you then their saviours ; let your verdict snatch them from his 
ravening maw, and interpose between yourselves and endless re- 
morse. The character of the prisoner has been given. Am I not 
warranted in saying that I am now defending an innocent fel- 
low subject on the grounds of eternal justice and immutable law? 
and on that eternal law I do call upon you to acquit my client. I 
call upon you for your justice ! Great is the reward and sweet the 
recollection in the hour of trial, and in the day of dissolution, 
when the casualties of life are pressing close upon the heart, or 
when in the agonies of death you look back to the justifiable and 
honourable transactions of your life. At the awful foot of eternal 
justice, I do therefore invite you to acquit my client ; and may God 
of his infinite mercy grant you a more lasting reward than that 
perishable crown we read of, which the ancients placed on the 
brow of him who saved in battle the life of a fellow citizen ! In the 
name of public justice I do implore you to interpose between the 
perjurer and his intended victim ; and if ever you are assailed by 
the hand of the informer, may you find an all powerful refuge in 
the example which, as jurors, you sliall set this day to those that 
mi^ht be called to pass upon your lives, that of repelling, at the 
human tribunal, the intended effects of hireling perjury and pre- 
meditated murder. And if it should be the fate of any of you to 
count the tedious moments of captivity, in sorrow and pain, pining 
in the damps and gloom of a dungeon, while the wicked one is go- 
ing about at,large seeking whom he may devour, recollect that there 
is another more awful tribunal than any upon earth, which we must 



gOQ LIFE OP CURRAN- 

all approach, and before wbieh the best of us will have<>ccasion icA 
look back to what little good we may have done on this side th< 
grave. Tn that awful trial— oh! may your verdict this day assure 
your hopes, and give you strength and consolation, in the presence 
cJf an adjudging God. Earnestly do I pray that the author of eter- 
fial justice may record the innocent deed you shall have done, an( 
give to you the full benefit of your claims to an eternal reward, 
Fequital in mercy upon your souls." 

The fate of O'Brien is almost a necessary sequel to the trial oi 
Finney. Mr. Curran, whom long observation in the exercise oi 
his profession had familiarised to every gradation of atrocity, de^ 
clared at the time, that, much as he had seen of crime, he had nevei 
met with such intense, unmitigated villany, as the conduct an< 
countenance of this ruffian manifested; and he did not hesitate t< 

I predict, that some act of guilt would shorten his career. Two year! 
after O'Brien v/as tried for murder,* and by a kind of retributive 

I justice, the two counsel who had rescued Finney were appointed t( 
conduct the prosecution. 

Mr. Curran's speech in O'Brien's case is not distinguished b^ 
much eloquence; but it possesses one quality, infinitely mor^ 
honourable to him than any display of talent could have been. It h 
full of moderation, resembling as much the charge of a judge as the 
statement of a prosecutor, and contains no vindictive allusion to the 
previous crimes of the prisoner. This the following extract will 
show: 

" The present trial is considered abroad as of some expectation. 
I am very well aware that when a judicial inquiry becomes the topic 
of public and general conversation, every conversation is in itself a 
iitile trial of the fact. The voice of public fame, the falsest witness 
that ever was sworn or unsworn, is always ready to bear testimony 
to the prejudice of an individual. The mind becomes heated, and 
it can scarcely be expected, even in a jury-box, to find it cool, and 
reflecting, and uninterested. There are two tribunals to which 

* An assemblage of persons of the lower orders having taken place in the 
suburbs of Dublin for the purpose of recreation, the officers of the police, 
gf accompanied by O'Brien, proceeded to disperse them. The multitude fled, 
and i(i the pursuit one of them (named Hoey) n^as murdered by O'Brien. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 201 

every man must he amenable; the one a municipal tribunal, the 
other the great, and general, and despotic tribunal of public reputa- 
tion. If the jury have any reason to suppose that any man who 
comes before them has been already tried by public fame, and con- 
demned, I beg to remind them of the solemn duty that justice im- 
poses on them ; to turn their eyes away from the recollection that 
any sentence of that sort of condemnation has been pronounced by 
tlie voice of public reputation; and if they think that his character 
has sunk under such a sentence, I remind the jury, that the infamy 
of such a condemnation is enough without their taking it into their 
consideration. It is the duty of the jury to leave the decrees of 
that court to be executed by its own authority, for they have no 
right to pass sentence of condemnation upon any man because that 
ill-judging court may have passed sentence on his character. They 
ought to recollect, that the evidence given before that court was 
unsworn, and therefore they are bound to consider the evidence 
before them naked and simple, as if they had never heard the name 
of the man they are to try, and the sentence of condemnation that 
public fame had pronounced upon his character. There is but one 
point of view in which public character ought to be taken — that is 
where there is doubt. In such a case general good character ought 
to have great weight, and go towards the acquittal of the accused ; 
but should it so happen that general bad character should be thrown 
into the scale, it ought not to have one twentieth part the weight 
that good character should have. 

" The jury, I am satisfied, will deliberately and cautiously weigh 
the evidence to be produced; they must be perfectly satisfied in 
their minds of the guilt of the prisoner. They must feel an irresisti- 
ble and coercive force acting on them, from the weight of the evi- 
dence, before, by their verdict, they pronounce that melancholy 
sentence which would remove a murderer from the face of the 
earth." 

O'Brien was convicted and executed. The populace of most 
countries are too disposed to regard the death of the greatest crimi- 
nals with sympathy and regret ; but so predominant were the feel- 
ings of terror and detestation which O'Brien's character had ox- 

26 



203 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

cited, that his execution was accompanied by shouts of the most 
unusual and horrid exultation. 

Before dismissing the subject of this wretched man, one observa- 
tion should be made, of which the omission might seem to imply a 
reproach upon the conduct of the prosecutors in Finney's case. It 
may occur, that the information of such a person should not have 
srained a moment's attention, still less have endangered the lives of 
so many subjects. It is, therefore, only just to add, that the real 
character of O'Brien was unknown to the officers of the crown, until 
it became developed in the progress of the trial. The attorney- 
general, who conducted that prosecution, was the late Lord Kil- 
warden, a man the most reverse of sanguinary, and who, in those 
violent times, was conspicuous for correcting the sternness of his 
official duties by the tenderness of his own amiable nature. His 
expiring sentiment had been the maxim of his life — " Let no man 
perish but by the just sepitence of the law." 



LIFE OF CURRAN, 203 



CHAPTER X. 

Kebellion of 1798— Its causes— Unpopular system of government—Influ- 
ence of the French Revolution—Increased intelligence in Ireland— Re- 
form societies— United Irishmen— Their views and proceedings— Apply 
for aid to France— Anecdote of Theobald Wolfe Tone— Numbers of the 
United Irishmen— Condition of the peasantry and conduct of the aristoc- 
racy — Measures of the government— Public alarm— General insurrec- 
tion. 

The order of this work has now brought us to the year 1798,-— 
the year 98 ! — a sound that is still so full of terrible associations to 
every Irishman's imagination. During the agitated period which 
followed the transactions of 1782, Ireland had seen the newly-ac- 
quired spirit of her people, inflamed by disappointment, by suffer- 
ing, and by ignorance, discharging itself in bursts of individual or 
local turbulence, which were not much felt beyond the particular 
persons, or the immediate spot. But the hour, of which these were 
the prophetic signs, and of which so many warning and unheeded 
voices foretold the approach, at length arrived, bringing with it 
scenes of civil strife that struck dismay into every fibre of the com- 
munity, sending thousands to the grave, thousands into exile, and in- 
volving many a virtuous and respected family in calamity and shame. 

In adverting to the events of this disastrous era, it would be an 
easy task to recapitulate its horrors, or, according to the once 
popular method, to rail at the memories of its victims i but it is 
time for invective and resentment to cease ; or, if such a feeling 
will irresistibly intrude, it is time at least to control and suppress 
it. Twenty years have now passed over the heads or the graves 
of the parties to that melancholy conflict, and their children may 
now see prospects of prosperity opening upon their country, not 
perhaps of the kind, or to the extent to which in her more ambitious 
days she looked, but assuredly of a more rational description than 
could have been attained by violence ; and such as, when realised? 
as they promise soon to be, will compensate for past reverses, or at 
all events console. At such a moment, in approaching this fatal 
year, we may dismiss every sentiment of personal asperity, o^ 



304 I^lFE OF CURRAN. 

posthumous reproach ; without wivshing to disturb the remorse of 
those upon either side who may be repenting, or to revive the an- 
guish of the many that have suifered, we may now contemplate it 
as the period of an awful historical event ; and allude to the mu- 
tual passions and mistakes of those who acted or perished in it, 
with the forbearance that should not be refused to the unfortunate 
and the dead. 

It has been seen, in the preceding pages, that the system by 
which Ireland was governed had excited general dissatisfaction, 
and that, in the year 1789, several of the most able and distin- 
guished persons in the Irish parliament formed themselves into a 
body, for the avowed design of opposing the measures of the ad- 
ministration, and of conferring upon their country, if their exertions 
could enable them, all the practical benefits of a free constitution. 
While they were scarcely yet engaged in this arduous struggle, the 
French revolution burst upon the world — not, as it has since been 
witnessed, presenting images of blood and disorder, but coming as 
the messenger of harmony and freedom to the afflicted nations* 
This character of peace and innocence it did not long retain, or 
was not allowed to retain ; but, in the progress of its resistless ca- 
reer, its crimes seemed for a while almost justified by the gran- 
deur of their results, and by the imposing principles which they 
w^ere committed to establish. It soon appeared how popular tal- 
ent, combined with popular force, could level all the old decrepit 
opinions against which they had confederated, and Europe was 
fixed with mingled wonder and dismay upon the awful spectacle of 
a|»elf-emancipated people seated upon the throne, from which they 
had hurled the descendant of their former idols as an hereditary 
usurper. 

The effects of this great event, and of the doctrines by which it 
was defended, were immense. Every day some long-respected max- 
im was tried and condemned, and a treatise sent forth to justify the 
decision. The passions were excited by addressing the reason — 
by bold and naked appeals to the primitive and undeniable princi- 
ples of human rights, without allowing for the numberless acci- 
dents of human condition by which those rights must inevitably be 
modified and restrained. Philosophy no longer reaiained to medi- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 205 

tate in the shade — she was now to be seen tJirecting the move- 
ments of the camp, or marching at the head of triumphal proces- 
sions, or presiding at civic feasts and regenerating clubs. In all 
this there was absurdity — but there was enthusiasm. The enthu- 
siasm spread with contagious fury. Every nation of Europe, eve- 
ry petty state became animated by a new-born vigour and unac- 
customed pretensions ; and, as if awaking from a long slumber, 
imagined that they had discovered in the old social bonds the 
shackles that enslaved them. " The democratic principle in Eu- 
rope was getting on and on like a mist at the heels of the country- 
man, small at first and lowly, but soon ascending to the hills, and 
overcasting the hemisphere.* This principle made its way to En- 
gland, where the better genius of the constitution prevailed against 
its allurements : it passed on to Ireland, where it was welcomed with 
open arms by a people who had been long since ripe for every 
desperate experiment. 

During the twenty years which preceded the French revolution, 
the progress of intelligence in Ireland had been unprecedented — a 
circumstance which is to be in part attributed to the general diifu- 
sion of knowledge at the same period throughout the European 
community, but still more to the extraordinary excitement which 
her own domestic struggles had given to the Irish mind. In Ire- 
land almost the whole of this accession of intellect was expended 
upon political inquiries, the most natural subjects of investigation in 
a country whose actual condition was so far below her most obvi- 
ous claims ; and this peculiar attention to local politics seems to 
have been the reason that her contributions to general science and 
literature have not been commensurate with the genius and increas- 
ed acquirements of her people. It has already been shown how 
much of this new energy was exerted upon the parliament for the 

* Mr. Grattan's Letter to the Citizens of Dublin. 

The readers of Milton will not fail to recognise this imoge, and to ob- 
<^crv€ the use which men of genius can make of their prodeciissors. 

All in bright array 
The cherubim descended— on the ground 
Gliding meteorou5, as evening mist 
Ris'n from a river o'er the marish glides, 
And gathers grouiAd ijpist at the lab'rer's heels 
Hoifleward returning. 

^^ Paradise Lost, Book xii. 



206 Lli^E OF CUKRAN, f ! 

reformation of the old penal system, which it was evident the na- 
tion had determined no longer to endure : but the parliament was 
inexorable ; and, by thus unnaturally opposing, instead of conduct- 
ing, and sometimes indulging, sometimes controlling the public 
sentiment, left it at the mercy of all whose resentnient or ambitioQ 
might induce them to take advantage of its exasperation.; 

Of such there were many in Ireland. There were several men 
of speculative and enterprising minds, who, looking upon the obsti- 
nate defence of abuses at home, and the facility with which they 
had been banished from a neighbouring country, became convinced 
that a revolution would now be as attainable as a reform, and that 
there was a fund of strength and indignation in the Irish people, 
which, if skilfully directed, would vanquish every obstacle. There 
is no intention here of passing any unthinking panegyric upon 
those who were thus meditating a conspiracy against the state-— 
upon the merits of such fatal appeals to chance and violence, no 
I friend'to law and humanity can hesitate a moment — but it is due to 
I historical truth to state, that, in the present instance, they were not 
a band of factious demagogues, of desperate minds and ruined for- 
tunes, who were looking to a revolution as a scene of confusion 
and depredation. In the formation of such a confederacy there 
could, indeed, have been no scrupulous selection of persons. 
Several, no doubt, entered into the association from private mo- 
tives ; — some from ambition — some from vanity — some from re- 
venge ; — but there were many whose mental attainments, and per- 
sonal virtues, and enthusiastic fidelity to the cause they had es- 
poused, extorted the admiration and sympathy of those who were 
the least disposed to justify their conduct, or deplore their fate. 

As early as the year 1791 the future leaders of the projected de- 
signs were taking measures for organising the public force, by 
producing a general union of sentiment among the various classes 
upon whose co-operation they were to depend. As yet neither 
their plans nor objects were distinct and defined ; but without any 
formal avowal of those objects to each other, and perhaps without 
being fully apprized themselves of their own final determinations, 
they took ns effectual advantage of every public accident as if the 
whole had been previously digested and resolved. About this pe- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 20T 

riod several of the friends to constitutional monarcliy, among 
whom appeared some of the most respected and exalted characters 
in the country, united in forming political societies,* for the purpose 
of collecting together all the rational supporters of freedom, and, 
by affording a legal and public channel of expression lo the popu- 
lar sentiment, of preventing the adoption of secret and more for- 
midable combinations. Many of the persons, who were afterwards 
the most active promoters of more violent proceedings, became 
members of these societies, of which the avowed object was a sim- 
ple redress of grievances — and with this there is reason to believe 
that the future leaders of the conspiracy would in the first instance 
have been satisfied ; but soon perceiving the improbability of such 
an event, while they continued, as members of the original and le- 
gal associations, ostensibly to limit their views to a constitutional 
reform, they were industriously establishing subordinate clubst 

* The principal of these was the Whig Club, which was formed under 
the auspices of the late lord Charlemont. The example was soon followed 
by the establishment of societies of United Irishmen at Belfast and Dublin, 
and finally in every part of the kingdom. It would be inconsistent with 
the limits of this work to trace minutely the progress of these societies ; but 
it should be observed, that several who were leading members of the United 
Irishmen, when their designs had become revolutionary, were unconnected 
with them at an earlier period. It is also necessary to remark, that, though 
many of those who took an active part in their proceedings at every period 
of their existence would originally have been satisfied with a reform, there 
were exceptions. See the following note. 

t Entitled " Societies of United Irislimen." By the test of the more 
early of these societies, the members pledged themselves " to persevere in 
endeavouring to form a brotherhood of affection among Irishmen of every 
religious persuasion, and to obtain an equal, full, and adequate representa- 
tion of all the people of Ireland in the Commons House of Parliament.*'' 
In the year 1795 the latter words were struck out, in order to accommodate 
the test to the revolutionary designs that began to be generally entertained- 
Report of the Secret Committee, 1798. 

It is a received opinion, that the celebrated Theobald Wolfe Tone was the 
author of the Constitution of the later United Irishmen ; but the writer of 
this work is informed by a gentleman now in Ireland, who was intimately 
connected with Mr. Tone, that he himself denied this to be the fact. *' He 
assured me (adds the gentleman alluded to) that Captain Thomas Russell, 
to whom he was for many years so warmly attached, was the person who 
drew up that remarkable paper, and that he (Tone) was not a member of 
the close society of United Irishmen till the eve of his embarking at Belfast 
for America, in the summer of 1795." It is, however, certain that Mr. 
Tone, as far back as 179 1 , strongly recommended to the societies of United 
Irishmen, then in their infancy, to attempt a revolution, as appears from his 
letter written in that year to the society at Belfast.— Report of the Secret 
Committee—Appendix. 



m 

208 LIFE OF CURRAN. (| 

throughout the country, to which, in order to allure adherents, and 
to evade suspicion, they assigned the same popular denominations, 
and the same tests ; but, by impressing on the minds of all who 
were admitted (and all of every class were admitted) that no hope 
of constitutional redress remained, they speedily formed them into 
a widely extended confederacy, under the name of the Irish Union,- 
for revolutionising Ireland, and establishing a republic. 

This statement refers more immediately to the north of Ireland, 
where a large portion of the inhabitants were protestants or dis- 
senters, who, having no religious disabilities to exasperate them, 
and being to a considerable degree possessed of affluence and 
education, must be supposed to have been determined to repub- 
lican principles upon purely speculative grounds. It should, 
however, be observed, that simultaneously with their proceedings, 
and without any connexion or communication with them, a most 
formidable league existed among the poorer catholics of several 
districts. These latter, assuming the name of Defenders,* had 
originally associated to repel the local outrages of their protestant 
neighbours. The frequency and the length of the conflicts in 
which they were involved, had forced them into a kind of barba- 
rous discipline and coherence ; and having now become confident 
from their numbers, and from their familiarity with success or with 
danger, they began to despise the laws, of which they had vainly 
invoked the protection, and to entertain a vague idea that their 
strength might be successfully employed for the improvement of 
their condition. While their minds were- in this state of confused 
excitation, emiss^iries were despatched from the united societies to 
explain to them their wrongs, and to propose the remedy. The 
Defenders were easily persuaded by the eloquence of doctrines^ 
which ©nly more skilfully expressed their previous sentiments ; 
and, laying aside their religious resentments and distinctive appella- 
tion, adopted the more general views and title of United Irishmen. 

* The Defenders first appeared about the year 1785: they increased 
: midly, and soon attained a considerable degree of organization. From 
■ili^Ar oath and rules, which are couched in'lhe rudest language, it sufficient- 
ly appears that the association must ha?e been composed of the lowest or- 
ders in the community. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 209 

.Before the year 1796, societies of United Irishmen prevailed in 
every cj\iarter of the kingdom. The great majority consisted of 
the lowest classes, of whom all that had the inducements of degra- I 
dation, or of personal animosities, readily enlisted under a stan- j 
dard that was to lead them to freedom and revenge. In order to 
secure an uniformity of action, and habits of subordination, a regu- 
lar and connected system (comprising committees, baronial, coun- 
ty, and provincial ; and, finally, an executive) was established, 
and periodical returns of members admitted, arms procured, money 
contributed, and of every other proceeding, were made with all 
the forms and order of a civil state. 

Their numbers had soon become so great, that nothing but dis- I 
cipline seemed wanting to the accomplishment of their objects ; / 
and when we consider the description of men of whom the mass 
was composed, we cannot contemplate without surprise the spirit | 
of ardour and secrecy that ihey displayed, and the enthusiastic 
patience with which they submitted to the irksomeness of delay, 
and to the labours and dangers by which alone any degree of dis- 
cipline could be acquired. In the neighbourhood of the capital 
and the principal towns, where large bodies could not have assem- 
bled without discovery, they separated into very small parties, 
each of which appointed the most skilful to direct its manoeuvres. 
The most active search was made for persons who had ever been 
in the military profession, to whom every motive of reward, and 
rank, and expected glory, were held out, and generally with sue- i 
cess, to allure them into the association. Under these they met, 
night after night, to be instructed in the use of arms ; sometimes 
in obscure cellars, hired for the purpose ; sometimes in houses, 
where every inhabitant was in the secret; it even some- 
times happened that in the metropolis these nocturnal exercises 
took place, in the habitations of the more opulent and ardent of 
the conspirators. In the interior their evolutions were performed . 
upon a more extensive scale. There, every evening that the moon, \ 
the signal of rendezvous, was to be seen in the heavens, the peas- \ 
ant^ without reposing from the toils of the day, stole forth with his 
rude implement of war, to pass the night upon the nearest unfre- 
quented heath, with the thousands of their comrades, who were as- 

27 



210 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

serabled at that place and hour, as for the celebration of some un- 
righteous mysteries. It was also a frequent custom at this time, 
among the lower orders, to collect in large bodies, under the pre- 
text of indulging in some of the national games of force ; but 
for the secret purpose of inspiring mutual confidence, by the dis- 
play of their numbers, and their athletic forms, and of exercising 
in those mimic contests the alertness and vigour which they were 
so soon to employ in the real conflict. The general enthusiasm 
was kept alive by the distribution of songs in praise of freedom, 
arranged to popular native airs. Green, the old distinguishing 
colour of the island, and in itself, from its connexion with the fac§ 
and restorative energies of nature, an excitant to the imagina- 
tions of men, who conceived themselves engaged in a struggle for 
the recovery of their natural rights, was adopted as their emblem. 
Their passion for spirituous liquors, a propensity that seems in 
some degree peculiar to those with whom it is the only luxury, and 
to those who have exhausted every other, was restrained, by ex- 
plaining to them the embarrassment in which the sudden non-con- 
sumption of such a source of revenue would involve the govern- 
ment. And so intense was the ardour for the general cause, that 
this inveterate indulgence was sacrificed to such a motive, and the 
populace became for a while distinguished by habits of unaccus- 
tpmed, and it might be said, impassioned sobriety.* 

The leaders of the United Irishmen began now (1796) to look 

with confidence to the success of their designs ; but foreseeing 

I that notwithstanding their strength and enthusiasm, the contest with 

I the regular forces of the government might be sanguinary and pro- 

,| tracted, they were anxious to call in the aid of a disciplined army, 

I which, by directing the movements and restraining the excesses of 

I the insurgents, might enable them to decide the struggle at a blow. 

{ For such a reinforcement they turned their eyes towards France. 

The documents produced upon Jackson's trial had lately given them 

public intimation, that that country was disposed to assist the Irish 

malcontents. The latter were aware that France could have no 

interestin promoting a constitutional reform in Ireland, of which the 

* Of the preceding facts, some are taken from the report of the secret 
committee, and others are eiven upon the authority of individual informa- 
tion. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 211 

obvious effect would have been an accession of strength to the 
British empire : they therefoie applied for a military aid to effect 
a separation from England.* This v^ould evidently be an impor- 
tant object with the French government ; and it was the necessity 
of holding out such an inducement that in some degree determined 
the Irish directory to the final and extreme measure of a revolu- 
tion. The French authorities accepted the proposal, and imme- 
diately prepared for the embarkation of an army, to co-operate 
with the Irish insurgents. But the main dependance of the leaders 
of the conspiracy was upon the Irish populace ; an agricultural 
population, full of vigour, burning for the conflict, and long inured 
to habits of insurrection. Of these, 500,000 were in arms. 

If it should here be asked by any of the many subjects of the 
same empire, who still continue strangers to the former condition 

* The United Irishmen despatched an ag^ent to France for this purpose 
about the middle of 1796. Mr. Tone was then at Paris, and exerting all 
his influence to the same ejQfect. In the first memorial which Mr. Tone 
presented to the French directory in order to induce them to send an ex- 
pedition to Ireland, he stated that at that period more than two-thirds of 
the sailors in the British Navy were Irish ; that he was present when the 
Catholic delegates urged this to Lord Melville as one reason for granting 
emancipation, and that his lordship had not denied the fact. This state- 
ment was understood to have had great weight with the directory, who 
immediately committed the whole of the subject to the consideration of 
Carnot I then one of the directory) and Generals Clark and Hoche. 

The gentleman who has communicated the preceding circumstance has 
added the following anecdote : 

Soon after the question of an expedition to Ireland had been left to the 
decision of Carnot, Clarke, and Hoche, they named an evening to meet 
Tone at the palace of the Luxembourg. Tone arrived at the appointed 
hour, eight o'clock. He was ushered into a splendid apartment. Shortly 
after the director and the generals made their appearance : they bowed 
coldly, but civilly, to Tone, and almost immediately retired, without apol- 
ogy or explanation, through a door opposite to that by which they had en- 
tered. Tone was a good deal struck by so unexpected a reception ; but 
his surprise increased, when ten o'clock arrived, without the appearance of, 
or message of any kind from, those on whom all his hopes seemed to depend. 
The clock struck eleven, twelve, one— all was still in the palace ; the steps 
of the sentinels, on their posts without, alone interrupted the dead silence 
that prevailed within. Tone paced the room in considerable anxiety ; not 
even a servant had entered of whom to inquire his way out, or if the director 
and the generals had retired. About two o'clock the toKiing doors were sud- 
denly thrown open ; Carnot, Clarke, and Hoche entered ; their countenan- 
ces brightened, and the coldness and reserve, so observable at eight o'clock, 
had vanished. Clarke advanced quickly to Tone, and taking him cordial- 
ly by the hand, said, " Citizen ! 1 congratulate you ; we go to Ireland.^^ — 
The others did the same ; and having lixed the lime to m^iet again, the per- 
sons engaged in this remarkable transaction separated, 



gl2 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

of Ireland, how so long and formidable a system of secret organi- 
zation could have been carried by her people for the violent de- 
sign of revolutionizing her country ? the answer is not difficult. It 
sprang from their degradation, and from the ignorance and re- 
venge that accompanied it. The rebellion of 1798 was a ser- 
vile war. In Ireland her millions of peasantry were a mere col- 
lection of physical beings, to whom nature had amply dispensed 
every human passion, but whom society had imparted no motives 
to restrain them. The informing mind of a free constitution had 
never reached them ; they never felt the tranquillizing conscious- 
ness, that they were objects of respect. In Ireland the state was 
not the " great central heart," that distributed life and health, and 
secured them in return. The old Irish government was a mechan- 
ical, not a moral system ; it was, what it has been so often likened 
to, a citadel in an enemy's country ; its first and its last expedient 
ivas force ; it forgot that those whom no force can subdue, nor dan- 
gers terrify, will kneel before an act of conciliation. But it obsti- 
nately refused to conciliate, and the people at length, prepared 
by the sufferings and indignities of centuries, listened with sanguine 
or desperate credulity to the counsel which reminded them of their 
strength, and directed them to employ it in one furious effort^ 
which, whether it failed or prospered, could not embitter their con^ 
dltion. 

The spirit of the government found a ready and fatal co-opera- 
tion in the gentry of the land. Never was there a class of men 
less amenable to the lessons of experience ; adversity, the great 
instructor of the wise, brought to them all its afflictions without 
their antidote. Every fierce, inveterate resentment of the race 
lineally descended, with the title-deeds, from the father to the child. 
Year after year the landlord's house was fired, his stock was plun- 
dered, his rent unpaid, his land a w^aste, and each succeeding year 
he was seen effecting his escape, through scenes of turbulence and 
danger, from his estate to the capital, to make his periodical com- 
plaint of his sufferings, and to give the minister another vote for 
their continuance. 

The Irish landlord of the last century was the great inciter to in- 
surrection. With a nominal superiority of rank and education, he 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 213 

was in every ferocious propensity upon a level with the degraded de- 
pendants, whom he affected to contemn, and whose passions he vain. 
ly laboured to control ; because he had never set them the example 
by controlling his own. Finding his efforts abortive, he next vindic- 
tively debased them ; and the consequence was, that in a litde 
time he shared the same fate with his victims. The condition of 
Ireland during the eighteenth century affords a striking and melan- 
choly example of the certain retribution with which a system of mis- 
rule will visit those who so mistake their own interests as to give it 
their support. An inconsiderable order, or a single sect, may 
(however unjustly) be degraded with impunity ; but the degrada- 
tion of the mass of a nation will inevitably recoil upon its oppres- 
sors. The consequences may not always be visible in formidable 
acts of force ; but there is a silent and unerring retaliation in the 
effects upon morals and manners, by which the tyrant is made 
eventually to atone for his crimes. In every condition of society 
the predominating sentiments and manners will spread and assimi- 
late. In highly polished states they may be observed descending 
from the higher to the inferior ranks. The courtesy and humanity 
of the old French peer were found to give a tinge to the conversa- 
tion of the mechanic. In uncivilized countries the progress is the 
reverse ; the rudeness of the boor will ascend and taint his master. 
The latter was the case in Ireland ; the Irish peasant, in his inter- 
course with his superiors, saw nothing of which the imitation could 
soften and improve him. The gentry, although conscious that their 
religion, and the violent means by which so many of them had ac- 
quired their properties, excited the suspicion and aversion of those 
below them, resorted to every infallible method of confirming these 
hostile impressions. Instead of endeavouring to eradicate them 
by mildness and protection, they insulted and oppressed. The 
dependant, unrestrained by any motive of affection or respect^ 
avenged himself by acts of petty outrage. The outrage was re- 
sented and punished as an original unprovoked aggression. Fresh 
revenge ensued, and hence every district presented scenes of tur- 
bulent contention, in which the haughty lord lost whatever dignity 
he had possessed, and finally became infected with the barbarous 
passions and manners of the vassals whom he had disdained t^ 
civilize, till he required as much to be civilized himself. 



2J4 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

The attachment of the Irish peasant to the government was sus- 
pected ; but nothing could have been more unskilful than the means 
adopted to secure his fidelity. The Irish aristocracy, who imagin- 
ed that because they were loyal, they might proceed to every vio- 
lent extreme, were a band of political fanatics, and would have 
made proselytes by the sword. They knew nothing of the real 
nature of the allegiance which they were so zealous to establish, 
and which was never yet established by the sword. They were 
not aware that the allegiance of a nation to the state is a feeling 
compounded of a thousand others, half interest, half sentiment, of 
gratitude, of hope, of recollections, of the numberless minute and 
" tender influences," that reconcile the subject to his condition ; 
that it is seldom a direct and defined attachment to the sovereign, 
but a collection of many subordinate attachments, of which the 
sovereign has all the benefit ; that it is but the youngest of the group 
of private virtues, and, like them, must be reared in the bosom of 
domestic comfort; that it is upon the moral allegiance of each rank 
to its immediate relations, of the servant to his master, of the artisan 
to his employer, of the tenant to his landlord, that must be founded 
the political allegiance of the whole to the state. 

Those mistaken loyalists supposed that they were teaching alle- 
giance by a haughty and vindictive enforcement of the laws against 
its violation. They did not see that they were exacting from the 
laws what no laws could perform ; that their positive provisions 
must be always impotent, where their spirit is not previously in- 
fused into the subject by manners and institutions. In Ireland 
these two were at perpetual variance. The Irish lawgiver passed 
his statute, setting forth, in pompous phraseology, its wisdom and 
necessity, and denouncing the gibbet against the offender, and then 
returned to his district, to defeat its efficacy, by giving a practical 
continuance to the misery, the passions, the galling epithets, and 
the long train of customary insults and local provocations that were 
for ever instigating to crime. He did, what was stranger and more 
absurd than this — he had the folly, to put the state in competition 
with a power above it. He trampled upon the religion of the peo~ 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 215 

plo^* — not reflecting, that, though by the doctrines of Christianity 
ail injuries are to be forgiven, it had been the universal practice of 
its various sects, for successive centuries, to except the offences 
committed against themselves. He pointed to the peasant's chapel, 
and gloried in the reflection, that the disloyal bell which had called 
their fathers to worship should never sound upon the ears of their 
children — as if to approach his Maker with a little show of decent 
pomp was not the harmless pride of every man of everv faith upon 
the surface of the globe. He thought he could drive them along 
the path of allegiance, where he had placed their religion to stop 
the way; and was surprised, that, when the alternative was to be 
made, they should turn upon their driver rather than advance in the 
face of vvhat they dreaded more than death. 

The mass of the Irish people were tillers of the soil, and were 
thus systematically debarred, by those who should have been their 
patrons and instructors, from every motive to be tranquil. The 
country gentleman, the great bulwark (if he performs his duties) 
against extended projects of revolution, hated them and feared 
them. He received them with sullen reserve when they brought 
him his rent, and trembled at the vigorous hands that paid it; but 
there was no moral intercourse between them, no interchange of 
sympathy and endearing offices. The landlords, in constant alarm 
for their property and safety, would not convert the depredator into 
a protector. They opposed the tenant's education, which would 
have taught him to employ his idle hours in acquiring a love of 
order, instead of passing them in plans to recover in plunder what 
he had paid in rent, and looked upon as tribute. Erecting them- 
selves into the little deities of their own district, they would not let 
the tenant touch of knowledge, lest he should " become as one of 
them." They drew between themselves and their natural allies a 
proud line of separation, W'hich effectually cut off all communica- 
tions of reciprocal affection, but proved a barrier of air against the 

* The first attacks upon the Irish catholics originated in the English par- 
liament ; but the Irish aristocracy gave the penal code their fullest support. 
Had the latter performed their duty, and undeceived England upon the sup- 
posed necessity of continuing it, the fate of Ireland would have been very 
different : but upon this subject England was abused, and is to this hour 
abused. 



216 LIFE OF CUllRAN. 

irruptions of hatred and of force. In Ireland there were none of 
those feudal privileges which bring the persons and feelings of the 
Scottish dependants into closer contact with those of their superiors. 
The Irish peasant was never seen in the hall of his lord. He was 
left in his hovel to brood over his degradation — to solace or inflame 
his fancy with legendary traditions of his country's ancient glory, 
and with rude predictions of her coming regeneration, and to hail, 
in every factious spirit, the Messiah that was to redeem her. 

These were the real causes of the avidity with which the Irish 
populace entered into this formidable conspiracy. The government 
was early apprised of its existence, though not of its extent, and 
took very vigorous but ineffectual means to suppress it. Session 
after session it resorted to measures of terror or precaution, by 
penal acts and prosecutions, to try their efficacy; but, of the per- 
sons thus proceeded against, the acquittal of many only served to 
bring discredit upon the administration, while the executions of 
such as were convicted were regarded by their party as so many 
acts of hostile severity, that called, not for submission, but revenge. 
The ministers of the crown conducted themselves, at this trying 
crisis, with a zeal which could not be too much applauded, if it 
were not so often carried to excess, and with the most undoubted 
fidelity to the powers whom they served; but throughout they com- 
mitted one fatal error, which must for ever detract from their char- 
acters as able statesmen. Because it was evident that a few edu- 
cated men were at the head of the popular combinations, they 
adopted, and to the last persisted in the opinion, or at least in the 
assertion, that the whole was essentially a conspiracy of a few 
speculative adventurers, who had seduced the nation from its alle- 
giance, and that ail the power and wisdom of the state was to be 
confined to the counteraction of the malignant design ; and to this 
notion, notwithstanding its daily refutation, they adhered, with the 
spirit rather of persons engaged in an acrimonious controversy, than 
of ministers whose duty it was to save the country from the hori'ors 
of a civil war.* It was to no purpose that the sophistry by which 

* Even after the suppression of the rebellion, when the government pos- 
sessed the fullest information regarding its origin and progress, the viceroy, 
in his speech to the parliamentj was made to say, " the foulest and darkest 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 2l7 

they defended it was exposed — it was in vain that they were told, 
by men who knew the state of Ireland and the general course of 
the human passions as well as they did, that their reasonings would 
never satisfy the disaffected — that the dissatisfaction was not tempo- 
rary or accidental, but radical — and that it was only a waste of time 
and of life to resort to unpopular laws and frequent executions, 
while the parent mischief remained untouched upon the statute 
book. The Irish ministry not only spurned those counsels, which 
the event proved to have been prophetic, but, superadding a farther 
error, they reviled the advisers with so little discretion, that they 
gave the real conspirators official authority for believing that the 
opposers of the administration were secretly the advocates ofre^ 
bellion, and thus afforded them an additional incitement to perse- 
vere in their designs.* 

This glaring departure from the most obvious prudence has been 
variously accounted for. By many it has been attributed to inca- 
pacity. A more general opinion was, that the government was 
fomenting the conspiracy, in order that the excesses to which it 
would lead might reconcile the nation to a legislative union : and,, 
however vulgar and improbable the latter supposition may appear/ 

conspiracy was formed and long carried on by the implacable enemy of this 
realm, for the total extinction of the constitution," &lc. — Lord Lieutenant's. 
Speech, October 6, 1798. 

* A leading member of the minority in the Irish House of Commons was 
the late Mr. George Ponsonby, a gentleman, who, if the purest constitu- 
tional views and personal dignity of deportment could have saved from in- 
sults, would have escaped them ; but at this period no dignity was a pro- 
tection. He, among others, impressed upon the ministrj^ that Ireland could 
be preserved from the threatened crisis by no means but by a complete re- 
form of the parliament, by catholic emancipation, and by an equalization of 
commerce between England and Ireland. The following was the answer 
of one of the servants of the crown (the solicitor-general i to Mr. Ponsonby's 
opinions : '' What was it come to, that in the Irish House of Commons they 
should listen to one of their own members degrading the character of an 
Irish gentleman by language which was fitted but for hallooing a mob ? Had 
he heard a man uttering out of those doors such language as that by which 
the honourable gentleman had violated the decorum of parliament, he would 
have seized the ruffian by the throat, and dragged him to the dust ! VVhat 
were the house made of who could listen in patience to such abominable 
sentiments ?— sentiments which, thank God, were acknowledged by no class 
of men in this country, except the execrable and infamous nest ot traitors, 
who were known by the name of United Irishmen, who sat brooding in 
Belfast over their discontents and treasons, and from wiiose publications he 
could trace, word for word, every expression the honourable gentleman had 
used.'*— /m/i i^aW. Deb. Feb. 1797. 

28 



g^8 LIFE or CURRAN, 

it is stiil perhaps the only one that can satisfactorily explain the 
apparent inconsistencies and infatuation of their councils. 

The enemy of Great Britain had already made an abortive effort* 
to transport ah armament to Ireland, the landing of which was to 
have been the signal for the intended rising ; but the leaders of the 
Irish union, still depending upon the promised renewal of the at- 
tempt, had beeh anxious to restrain the impatience of the people 

* In December 1796 the French fleet was dispersed by a storm. A part 
of it anchored in Bantry Bay, where it remained for some days ; but the 
vessel, on board of which General Hoche ('the commander of the expedition) 
was, not arriving, the French admiral, without attempting a landing, re » 
turned to France. 

It is well known that grievous complaints were made in the English par- 
liament against the ministry, for having left the coasts of Ireland so unpro- 
tected on this occasion. In explanation of this apparent negligence, Theo- 
bold Wolf Tone, who had been confidentially employed in the preparations 
for the French expedition, (he was himself on board one of the vessels that 
anchored in Bantry Bay^ related the following circumstance, as having 
come within his personal knowledge. While this formidable armament, 
which had so long fixed the attention of Europe, was fitting out at Brest, 
various conjectures prevailed as to its probable destination. The general 
opinion was that the invasion of either Ireland or Portugal was intended. — 
There was at this time (according to Mr. Tone's account) a secret agent of 
the British minister at Brest, who, having discovered that a particular prin- 
ter of that town had General Hoche's proclamations in his press, privately 
offered him a large sum for a single copy. With this offer the printer made 
General Hoche acquainted, who immediately drew up a proclamation, as 
addressed to the Portuguese by the commander of the French invading army. 
A few copies of this were accordingly, by the General's desire, struck off, 
and handed by the printer to the agent. The latter forwarded them to Mr. 
Pitt whom the receipt of such a document is said to have so completely de- 
ceived, that he directed the British squadrons to make Portugal the peculiar 
object of their vigilance, and, in the first instance, treated the report of an 
actual descent upon Ireland with derision. 

Although the appearance of the French fleet in Bantry Bay produced no 
movements of disaffection in the vicinity, it was yet at this period, or very 
shortly after, that the organization of the United Irishmen was most com^ 
plete, and their prospect of success most promising. In 1797 they felt as- 
sured, that, in the event of a general insurrection, the greater number of the 
Irish militia regiments would have revolted. It is confidently asserted, 
that, an attack upon Dublin having been proposed in that year, every sol- 
dier who mounted guard in that city on the night of the intended attempt 
was in their interests. 

The following occurrence, however ludicrous, is a striking proof of the 
prevailing sentiment among the native forces. At this time persons of demo- 
cratic principles, in imitation of the French revolutionists, wore their 
hair short behind ; from which custom croppies and rebels became synony- 
mous terms. A commander of yeomanry in Dublin, while reviewing his 
corps, observed a false tail lying upon the parade. He held it up, and ask- 
ed who had dropped it. By an instantaneous movement, every man of the 
corps raised his hand to the back of his head. This corps is said to have 
beeh, in consequence, disbanded on the following day. 



LIFP OF CURRAN/ 219 

until ifae foreign succours should arrive. Disappointed, however, 
in their expectations from abroad, and apprehending from any fur- 
ther delay, either the uncontrollable impetuosity or the desertion 
of their followers, they resolved, in the early part of this year, 
against their better judgment, to bring the matter to a final issue. 
The 23d of May was fixed as the day for a general insurrection. 

Of this intention the government having received information in 
the course of the preceding March, arrested several of the princi- 
pal leaders in the capital ; and, announcing by proclamation the 
existance of the conspiracy, authorised the military powers to em- 
ploy the most summary methods of suppressing it. 

This formal declaration of the impending crisis was followed by 
the most extreme agitation of the public mind. Every ear was 
catching, every tongue was faltering some tremendous confirmatiou 
that the hour was at hand. As it approached, the fearful tokens 
became too manifest to be mistaken. In the interior, the peasant- 
ry were already in motion. Night after night large masses of them 
were known to be proceeding by unfrequented paths to some cen- 
tral points. Over whole tracts of country the cabins were cle» 
serted, or contained only women ^nd children, from whom the in- 
quirers cpvild extort no tidings of tl^e owners. In the towns, to 
which, in th^ intervals of labour, the lower classes delighted to 
flock, a frightful dimunition of numbers wa^s observed ; while the 
few that appeared there, betrayed, by the moody exultation of their 
looks, that they were not ignorant of the cause. Throughout the 
capital, against which the first fury of the insurgents was to be di- 
rected, and where, from its extent, there could never be a certain- 
ty that the attack had not already begun, the consternation was 
universal. The spectacle of awful preparation, that promised se- 
curity, gave no tranquillity. In the panic of the moment the mea- 
sures for security became so many images of danger. The milita- 
ry array and bustle in some streets — the silence and desertion of 
others — the names of the inhabitants registered on every door— the 
suspension of public amusements, and almost of private intercourse 
— the daily proclamations— prayers put up in the churches for the 
general safety— families flying to England— partings that might be 
eternal— every thing oppressed the imagination with the convic- 



320 ^^^^^ ^F CURRAN" 

tion, that a great public convulsion was at hand. The parliament* 
and the courts of justice, with a laudable attachment to the forms 
of the constitution, continued their sittings ; but the strange aspect, 
of senators and advocates transacting civil business in the garb of 
soldiers, reminded the spectator that the final dependance of the 
state was upon a power beyond the laws. In Dublin the domes* 
tics of the principal citizens had disappeared, and gone off to join 
the insurgents ; while those, who could not be seduced to accom- 
pany them, became the more suspected, from this proof of their fi- 
delity : they could have remained, it was apprehended, for the sole 
purpose of being spies upon their masters, and co-operators in their 
Intended destruction ; and thus, to the real dangers of a general 
design against the government, were added all the imaginary hor- 
rors of a project of individual vengeance. The vigorous precau- 
tions of the administration, instead of inspiring confidence, kept 
alive the public terror and suspense. In every quarter of the king- 
dom the populace were sent in droves to the prisons, till the pri- 
sons could contain no more. The vessels in the several bays ad- 
joining the scenes of disturbance were next converted into gaols. 
The law was put aside : a non-commissioned officer became the 
arbiter of life and death. The military were dispersed through 
every house : military visits were paid to every house in search of 
arms, or other evidence of treason. The dead were intercepted 
on their passage to the grave, and their coffins examined, lest they 
might contain rebellious weapons. Many of the conspirators were 
informally executed. Many persons who were innocent were ar- 
rested and a.bused. Many, who might have been innocent, were 
suspected, and summaaily put to death. 

Upon the appointed day the explosion took place. The shock 
was dreadful. The imagination recoils from a detail of the scenes 
that followed. Every excess that could have been apprehended from 
a soldiery, whom General Abercrombie, in the language of manly re- 

* On the 22d of May (the day before the insurrection) the House of Com- 
mons voted an address to the viceroy, expressing their fidelity and their re- 
liance upon the vigilance and vigour of his government. In order to ren- 
der the proceeding more imposing, ail the members of that house, with the 
speaker at their head, walked through the streets, two and two, and pre- 
sented the address to his excellency. 



LIFE OF CURT? AN. 221 

proof, had declared to be in a state of licentiousness that rendered 
it formidable to all but the enemy; every act of furious retaliation 
to be expected from a peasantry inflamed by revenge and despair, 
and, in consequence of the loss of their leaders, surrendered to the 
auspices of their own impetuous passions, distinguished and dis- 
graced this fatal conflict.* After a short and sanguinary struggle, 
the insurgents were crushed* The numbers of them who perished 
in the field, or on the scaffold, or were exiled, are said to have 
amounted to 50,000; — the losses upon the side of the crown have 
been computed at 20,000 lives ; — a solemn and memorable fact : — 
70,000 subjects sacrificed in a single year, whose energies, had oth- 
er maxims of government prevailed, might have been devoted to 
what it is equally the interest of subjects and governments to pro- 
mote — the cause of rational freedom, the possession of which can 
alone inspire a manly and enlightened attachment to the laws and 
the state. 

* The high state of passion and resentment which prevailed at this un- 
fortunate period may be collected from the single fact, that in the House of 
Commons a member suggested that military executions should have a retro- 
spective operation, and that the state prisoners, who had been for several 
weeks in the hands of government, should be summarily disposed of; but 
the secretar}'. Lord Castlereagh) with becoming dignity and.huraanity, ve° 
hemently discountenanced so shocking a proposal. 



2$2 LI^^ ^^ GURRAN. 

CHAPTER X!. 

Trial of Henry and John Sheares. 

As soon as the public safety was secured (it was long before 
ti*anquiliity was restored) by the defeat of the insurgents, a general 
amnesty was granted to all, except the actual leaders of the C0iKSj)i- 
racy, who should surrender their arms, and take the oath of allegi- 
ance to the King. Several of the leaders were in the hands ol the 
government, and it was now decided that the most conspicuous of 
them should be brought to immediate trial, in order that their fates 
should give a final blow to any still remaining hopes of their adhe^ 
rents. 

The first of the persons thus selected were two young gentlemen, 
I brothers, and members of the Irish bar, Henry and John Sheares* 
^iTheir previous history contains nothing peculiar. They were both 
' of respectable and amiable characters. The elder of them " hacj 
given many hostages to fortune ;" but with the ardour incidental to 
their years, and to the times, they had been induced to look beyond 
those sources of private happiness which they appear to have abun- 
dantly enjoyed, and to engage in the political speculations that were 
now to be expiated with their lives. When the original members 
of the Irish executive were committed to prison, in the month of 
March, the Sheareses were among those who were chosen to sup- 
ply their place, and they took a very active part in arranging the 
plan of the approaching insurrection. Of all these proceedings the 
government obtained accurate information through a Captain Arm- 
strong, an officer of the Irish militia, who had succeeded in insinuat- 
ing himself into their confidence, for the purposes of discovery. 
They were accordingly arrested two days previous to the explo- 
sion, and were now summoned to abide their trial for high treason . 

Mr. Curran's defence of these unfortunate brothers was suppres- 
sed at the period, and is generally supposed to have altogether per- 
i§^^ed. A report of the trial has, however, been preserved, from 
which an account of the share that he bore in it shall now be given. 

The prisoners were brought to the bar, and arraigned, on the 4th 



LIFE OF curraN. 223 

of July, 1798. In this stage of the proceedings, a very interesting 
and important discussion took place. Their counsel having dis- 
covered that one of the grand jury, who had found the bill of indict- 
ment, was a naturalized Frenchman, pleaded that fact against its 
legality. The following are parts of Mr. Curran's argument upon 
the occasion :* 

" My lords ; the law of this country has declared, that in order 
to the conviction of any man, not only of any charge of the higher 
species of criminal offences, but of any criminal charge whatsoev- 
er, he must be convicted upon the finding of two juries ; first, of 
the grand jury, who determine upon the guilt in one point of view ; 
and, secondly, by the corroborative finding of the petty jury, who 
establish that guilt in a more direct manner ; and it is the law of 
this country, that the jurors, who shall so find, whether upon the 
grand or upon the petty inquest, shall be " probi et legates homines 
omni exceptione majores.^^ They must be open to no legal objec- 
tion of personal incompetence ; they must be capable of having 
freehold property, and in order to have freehold property, they 
must not be open to the objection of being born under the ju- 
risdiction of a foreign prince, or owing allegiance to any foreign 
power. Because the law of this country, and indeed the law 
of every country in Europe, has thought it an indispensable pre- 
caution, to trust no man with the weight or influence which ter- 
ritorial possession may give him contrary to that allegiance which 
ought to flow from such possession of property in the country. 
This observation is emphatically forcible in every branch of the 
criminal law ; but in the law of treason, it has a degree of force 
and cogency that fails in every inferior class of offence ; because 
the very point to be inquired into in treason is the nature of alle- 
giance. The general nature of allegiance may be pretty clear 
to every man. Every man, however unlearned he may be, can 
easily acquire such a notion of allegiance, whether natural and 

* Different statutes of Charles II. Geo. I. and Geo. III. enact, that natu- 
ralized aliens, performing- certain specified conditions, " shall be deemed 
liege, free, and natural subjects, to ail intents and purposes ;" with a pro- 
viso, *' that they shall not be enabled to serve in parliament, nor to be of 
his majesty's privy council, nor to hold any office of trust, civil or military, 
n the kingdom.'* 



§34 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

born with him, or whether it be temporary and contracted by emi- 
gration into another country ; he may acquire a vague, untechnical 
idea of allegiance, for his immediate personal conduct. But I am 
warranted in saying, that the constitution does not suppose that any 
foreigner has any direct idea of allegiance but what he owes to his 
original prince. The constitution supposes, and takes for granted, 
that no foreigner has such an idea of our peculiar and precise alle- 
giance, as qualifies him to act as a juror, where that is the question 
to be inquired into ; and I found myself upon this known principle, 
that though the benignity of the English law has, in many cases, 
where strangers are tried, given a jury, half composed of foreign- 
ers and half natives, that benefit is denied to any man accused of 
treason, for the reason 1 have stated ; because, says Sir W. Black- 
stone, ' aliens are very improper judges of the breach of allegi- 
ance.''^ A foreigner is a most improper judge of what the allegi- 
ance is which binds an English subject to his constitution. And, 
therefore, upon that idea of utter incompetency in a stranger, is ev-. 
ery foreigner directly removed and repelled from exercising a func- 
tion that he is supposed utterly unable to discharge. If one 
Frenchman shall be suffered to find a bill of indictment between our 
lord the king and his subjects, by a parity of reasoning may twen- 
ty-three men of the same descent be put into the box, with authori- 
ty to find a bill of indictment. By the same reason, that the court 
Biay communicate with one man whose language they do not know, 
may they communicate with twenty-three natives of twenty-three 
different countries and languages. How far do I mean to carry 
this f Thus far : ths^it every statute, or means by which allegiance 
may be shaken off, and any kind of benefit or privilege conferred 
upon an emigrating foreigner, is for ever to be considered . by a 
court of justice with relation to that natural incompetency to per- 
form certain trusts, which is taken for granted and established by 
the law of England. 

" Therefore, my lord, my clients have pleaded, that the bill 
of indictment to which they have been called upon to an- 
swer has been found, among others, by a foreigner, born under a 
foreign allegiance and incapable of exercising the right of a ju- 

^ 4 Bl. Com. 352. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 225 

rof, upon the grand or the petty inquest. The stat. of Charles H: 
recites, that the kingdom was wasted by the unfortunate troubles of 
that time, and that trade had decreased for want of merchants. 
After thus stating generally the grievances which had afflicted the 
trade and population of the country, and the necessity of encour- 
aging emigration from abroad, it goes on, and says, that strangers 
may be induced to transport themselves and families to replenish 
the country, if they may be made partakers of the advantages and 
free exercise of their trades without interruption and disturbance. 
The grievance was the scarcity of men ; the remedy was the en- 
couragement of foreigners to transport themselves, and the encour- 
agement given was such a degree of protection as was necessary 
to the full exercise of their trades in the dealing, buying and sell- 
ing, and enjoying the full extent of personal security. Therefore 
it enacts, that all foreigners of the protestant religion, and all 
merchants, &c. who shall, within the term of seven years, trans- 
port themselves to this country, shall be deemed and reputed natu- 
ral-born subjects, and ' may implead and be impleaded,' and ' prose- 
cute and defend suits.' The intention was to give them protection 
for the purposes for which they were encouraged to come here ; 
^nd therefore the statute, instead of saying, generally, ' they shall 
be subjects to all intents and purposes,' specifically enumerates the 
privileges they shall enjoy. If the legislature intended to make 
them ' subjects to all intents and purposes,' it had nothing more to 
do than say so.* But not having meant any such thing, the 
statute is confined to the enumeration of the mere hospitable rights 
and privileges to be granted to such foreigners as come here for 
special purposes. It states, ' he may implead, and he shall be an- 
swered unto ;' that * he may prosecute and defend suits.' Why go 
on and tell a man, who is to all intents and purposes a natural-born 
subject, that he may implead and bring actions ? I say, it is to all 
intents and purposes absurd and preposterous. If all privileges 
be granted in the first instance, why mention particular parts after- 
wards ? A man would be esteemed absurd, who by his grant gave 

* The statute does say this generally, in the first instance ; but the subse- 
quent enumeration of particular privileges supports the viow that Mr, Cur- 
ran took of it 



g2'6 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

a thing under a general description, and afterwards granted the 
particular parts. What would be thought of a man, who gave an- 
other his horse, and then said to the grantee, ' I also give you 
liberty to ride him when and where you please ?' What was the 
case here ? The government of Ireland said, ' we want men of 
skill and industry ; we invite you to come over ; our intention is, 
that if you be protestants, you shall be protected ; but you are not 
to be judges, or legislators, or kings ; we make an act of par- 
liament, giving you protection and encouragement to follow the 
trades, for your knowledge in which we invite you. You are to 
exercise your trade as a natural-born subject. How f ' With full 
power to make a bargain, and enforce it. We invest you with the 
same power, and you shall have the same benefit, as if you were 
appealing to your own natural forum of public justice. You shall 
be here as a Frenchman in Paris, buying and selling the commodi- 
ties appertaining to your trade.' 

" Look at another clause in the act of parliament, which is said 
to make a legislator of this man, or a juror, to pass upon the life or 
death of a fellow-subject — no, not a fellow-subject, but a stranger. 
It says, ' you may purchase an estate, and you may enjoy it, with- 
out being a trustee for the crown.' Why was that necessary, if he 
were a subject to all intents and purposes ? But, my lords, a great 
question remains behind to be decided upon. 1 know of no case 
upon it, I do not pretend to say that the industry of other men 
may not have discovered a case. But I would not be surprised if 
no such case could be found — if, since the history of the adminis- 
tration of justice, in all its forms, in England, a stranger had not 
been found intruding himself into its concerns^if, through the en- 
tire history of our courts of justice, an instance was not to be found 
of the folly of a stranger interfering upon so awful a subject as the 
breach of allegiance between a subject and his king. My lords, I 
heg leave upon this part to say, that it would be a most formidable 
thing, that a court of justice would pronounce a determination big 
w-ith danger, if they should say that an alien may find a bill of in- 
dictment involving the doctrine of allegiance. It is permitting 
him to intermeddle in a business of which he cannot be supposed 
to have any knowledge. Shall a subject of the Irish crown be 



LIFE OF CURRAiN. 221 

charged with a breach of his allegiance upon the saying of a Ger- 
man, an Italian, a Frenchman, or a Spaniard ? Can any man sup- 
pose any thing more monstrous or absurd, than that of a stranger 
being competent to form an opinion upon the subject ? I would 
not form a supposition upon it. At a time, when the generals, the 
admirals, and the captains of France, are endeavouring to pour 
their armies upon us, shall we permit their petty detachments to 
attack us injudicial hostility ? Shall we sit inactive, and see their 
skirmishes take off our fellow- subjects by explosions in a jury- 
room ? 

" When did this man come into this country ? Is the raft upon 
which he floated now in court f What has he said upon the back 
of the bill ? What understanding had he of it ? If he can write 
more than his own name, and had written ' ignoramus' upon the 
back of the indictment, he might have written truly ; he might say 
he knew nothing of the matter. He says he is naturalized. ' I am 
glad of it ; you are welcome to Ireland, sir ; you shall have all the 
privileges of a stranger, independent of the invitation by which you 
came. If you sell, you shall recover the price of your wares ; you 
shall enforce the contract. If you purchase an estate, you shall 
transmit it to your children, if you have any ; if not, your devisee 
shall have it. But you must know, that in this constitution there 
are laws binding upon the court as strongly as upon you. The 
statute itself, which confers the privileges you enjoy, makes you in- 
capable of discharging offices. Why ? Because they go to the 
fundamentals of the constitution, and belong only to those men 
who have an interest in that constitution transmitted to them from 
their ancestors.' Therefore, my lords, the foreigner must be con- 
lent ; he shall be kept apart from the judicial functions ; — in the 
extensive words of the act of parliament, he shall be kept from 
' all places of trust whatsoever.' If the act had been silent in that 
part, the court would, notwithstanding, be bound to say, that it did 
not confer the power of tilling the high departments of the state, 
The alien would still be incapable of sitting in either houses of 
parliament — he would be incapable of advising with the king, or 
holding any place of constitutional trust whatever. What ? shall 
it be said there is no trust in the office of a grand juror ? I do not; 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 

speak or think lightly of the sacred office confided to your lord- 
ships, of administering justice between the crown and subject, or 
between subject and subject ; — 1 do not compare the office of grand 
juror to that ; — but, in the name of God, with regard to the issues 
of life and death — with regard to the consequences of imputed or 
established criminality — what difference is there in the constitu- 
tional importance between the juror who brings in a verdict, and 
the judge who pronounces upon that verdict the sentence of the 
law ? Shall it be said that the former is no place of trust? What 
is the place of trust meant by the statute ? It is not merely giv- 
ing a thing to another, or depositing it for safe custody ; — it means 
constitutional trust, the trust of executing given departments, in 
which the highest confidence must be reposed in the man appoint- 
ed to perform them. "It means not the trust of keeping a paltry 
chattel — -it means the awful trust of keeping the secrets of the 
state and of the king. Look at the weight of the obligation imposed 
upon the juror — look at the enormous extent of the danger, if he 
violate or disregard it. At a time like the present, a time of war— - 
what, is the trust to be confided to the conscience of a French- 
man ? But I am speaking for the lives of my clients ; and I do 
not choose even here to state the terms of the trust, lest I might 
furnish as many hints of mischief as I am anxious to furnish argu- 
ments of defence. But shall a Frenchman at this moment be en- 
trusted with those secrets upon which your sitting upon the bench 
may eventually depend ? What is the inquiry to be made f Hav- 
ing been a pedlar in the country, is he to have the selling of the 
country, if he be inclined to do so ? Is he to have confided to him 
the secrets of the state ? He may remember to have had a Jirst 
allegiance, and that he was sworn to it. He might find civilians 
to aid his perfidious logic, and to tell him, that a secret, communis 
cated to him by the humanity- of the country which received him, 
might be disclosed to tlie older and better matured allegiance 
sworn to a former power ! He might give up the perfidious use of 
his conscience to the integrity of the older title. Shall the power 
of calling upon an Irishman to take his trial before an Irish judge, 
l^^fore the country, be left to the broken speech, the lingua franca 
of a Stranger, coming among you, and saying? ' I, was naturalized 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 229 

by act of parliament, and I cannot carry on my trade wilhout deal 
ing in the blood of your citizens?' He holds up your statute as his 
protection, and flings it against your liberty, claiming the right of 
exercising a judicial function, and feeling, at the same time, the 
honest love for an older tide to allegiance. It is a love which ev- 
ery man ought to feel, and which every subject of this coun-e 
try would feel, if he left his country to-morrow, and were to 
spend his last hour among the Hottentots of Africa. I dtt; 
trust in God there is not a man that hears me, who does not' 
feel that he would carry with him, to the remotest part of thel 
globe, the old ties which bound him to his original friends^ his* 
country, and his king. I do, as the advocate of my clients, of my; 
country — as the advocate for you, my lords, whose elevation pre-j 
vents you from the possibility of being advocates for yourselves — 
for your children I do stand up ; and rely upon it, that this act of 
parliament has been confined to a limited operation — it was enact- 
ed for a limited purpose, and will not allow this meddling stranger 
to pass upon the life, fame, or fortune, of the gentlemen at the bar — 
of me, their advocate — of you, their judges — or of any man in the 
nation. It is an intrusion not to be borne." 

Mr. Plunket followed Mr. Curran on the same side ; but, after a 
long discussion, it was ruled by the court, that the office of grand 
juror was not one of the offices of trust alluded to by the legislature, 
and, consequently, that the person objected to was competent to 
fill it. The prisoners were, therefore, in the language of the law, 
" awarded to answer over." Their trial was, upon their own ap- 
plication, in consequence of the absence of witnesses, postponed till 
the 12th of July, when it came on for final decision before Lord 
Carleton, Mr. Justice Crookshank, and Mr. Baron Smith. 

Mr. Curran-s speech upon this occasion,* which was considered 
as the most moving that he had ever pronounced, was rendered 

* This speech, in its reported state, is by no means the most favourable 
specimen of Mr- Curran's eloquence. Several passages in it are broken 
and unconnected, which may be attributed either to the incorrectness ot the 
reporter, or to the extreme exhaustion of the speaker. If the defect arose 
from the latter cause, the solemnity of his delivery atoned for it with his 
auditors ; for nothing could exceed the effect which it produced upon theln 
The suppression of this defence has been so often the subject of public re- 
gret, that the whole of it, as it has been preserved,, is given here. 



230 l^IFE OF CURRAN. 

peculiarly affecting, by the circumstances that accompanied its de- 
livery. Notwithstanding the length of many of the state trials of 
this period, the courts seldom adjourned till the proceedings were 
concluded, so that their sittings were not only protracted to a late 
hour of the night, but it was not unusual for the returning morning 
to find them still occupied with their melancholy labours. 

It was midnight when Mr. Curran rose to address the jury ; and 
the feelings with which he entered on the task cannot be perfectly 
conceived, without adverting to the persons who were grouped 
around him. At the bar stood his clients, connected with each 
other by blood, with their advocate, and many more of the sur- 
rounding audience, by profession, and with the presiding judge by 
the ties of hereditary friendship.* Upon the bench he saw in- 
Lord Carleton one of his own oldest and most valued friends, with 
whom he was now to intercede, if intercession could avail, for those 
who had so many tender claims to his merciful consideration ; while 
upon the jury appeared several whom Mr. Curran (and probably 
his clients) had long known as acquaintances and companions, and 
with more than one of whom he had lived, and was still living, upon 
terms of the most confidential intimacy. When to this collection 
of private relations, so unusual upon such an occasion, are added 
the other attending public circumstances, it is not surprising that 
the surviving spectators of this memorable scene should speak of it 
as marked by indescribable solemnity. The fate that impended 
over the unfortunate brothers— the perturbed state of Ireland — the 
religious influence of the hour — the throng of visages in the galleries, 
some of them disfigured by poverty, others betraying, by their im- 
passioned expression, a consciousness of participation in the of- 
fence for which the accused were about to suffer, and all of them 
rendered haggard and spectral by the dim lights that discovered 
them — the very presence of those midnight lights so associated in 
Irish minds with images of death — every thing combined to inspire 
the beholders, who were now enfeebled by exhaustion, with a 
superstitious awe, and to make the objects, amidst which the advo- 

* Lord Carleton had been the intimate friend of the parents of the pri- 
soners— (see the conclusion of the trial :) — a report even prevailed that he 
bad been the guardian of the latter ; but this, it is presumed, was incorrect. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 231 

cate rose to perform the last offices to his sinking clients,* appear 
not so much a reality, as the picture of a strained and disturbed 
imagination. 

Mr. Curran.t — " My lord, before I address you or the jury, I 
would wish to make one preliminary observation. It may be an 
observation only — it may be a request. For myself I am indif- 
ferent ; but I feel I am now unequal to the duty — I am sinking under 
the weight of it. We all know the character of the jury : the in- 
terval of their separation must be short, if it should be deemed 
necessary to separate them. I protest I have sunk under this trial. 
If I must go on, the Court must bear with me ; — the jury may also 
bear with me; — 1 will go on until I sink; — but, after a sitting of 

* Mr. Curran was nominally counsel for only one of the prisoners : he 
had originally been the assigned counsel for both ; but before the trial com- 
menced, at the request of John Sheares, Mr. Ponsonby was assigned one of 
his counsel in the room of Mr. Curran, in order to give the prisoners four 
counsel between them. The other two were Mr. Pkmket and Mr. M'Nally. 
But as the charge and evidence against both the prisoners were the same, 
the counsel for one was virtually defending the other. 

t That the reader may more fully comprehend the topics of Mr. Curran's 
speech for the prisoners, the following summary of the leading articles of 
the evidence is inserted. The principal witness for the crown, John Warn- 
ford Armstrong, of the King's County militia, proved the overt-acts of high 
treason laid in the indictment. He swore that he was introduced by Mr. 
Byrne, a bookseller of Dublin, to the prisoners, who, supposing him (Arm- 
strong) to be an United Irishman, freely communicated to him their treason- 
able designs. He had subsequent interviews with them at their own homes, 
the subjects of which he regularly reported to Colonel L'Estrange and Cap- 
tain Clibborn of his own regiment, to Mr. Cooke of the Castle, and to Lord 
Castlereagh. Doubts having been entertained of the witness' belief in the 
existence of a Deity, and a future state of rewards and punishments, Mr. 
Curran, who cross examined him, pressed him upon those points. Captain 
Armstrong swore that he had always professed that belief, and that he had 
never derided the obligation of an oath. 

He also swore that he had never said, *• that, if no other person could be 
found to cut off the head of the king of England, that he (the witness) would 
do it ;" and that he had never declared " that the works of Paine contained 
his creed." 

To these latter articles of Armstrong's evidence was opposed that of T. 
Drought, Esq. who swore that Armstrong, with whom he was very intimate, 
had frequently uttered atheistical opinions; and, Avith his usual calmness of 
manner, had spoken of the future state of the soul of man as an eternal 
sleep — annihilation — non-existence. 

Pi. Bride, Esq. barrister at law, swore that he had heard Armstrong speak 
slightingly of the obligation of an oath. 

C. R. Shervington, Esq. (Lieulenint, 41st regiment, and uncle to Arm- 
strong) swore that Armstrong had said, in his presence, that if there was not 
another executioner in the kingdom for George the Third, he vvould be one, 
and pique himself upon ii ; and that, upou .mother occasion, Armstrong; 
handed him Paine's Rights of Man, saying, Head this, it is my creed. 



33^2 ^^^^ OF CURRAN. 

sixteen hours, with only twenty minutes interval, in these times, t 
should hope it would not be thought an obtrusive request, to hope 
for a few hours interval for repose, or rather for recollection." 

Lord Carleton. — " What say you, Mr. Attorney-General?" 

Mr. Attorney- General Toler. — " My lords, I feel such public in- 
convenience from adjourning cases of this kind, that I cannot con- 
sent. The counsel for the prisoners cannot be more exhausted 
than those for the prosecution. If they do not choose to speak t6 
the evidence, we shall give up our right to speak, and leave the 
matter to the Court altogether. They have had two speeches 
already; and leaving them unreplied to is a great concession." 

Lord Carleton. " We would be glad to accommodate as much 
as possible. I am as much exhausted as any other person ; but 
we think it better to go on." 

Mr. Curran. " Gentlemen of the jury : it seems that much has 
been conceded to us. God help us ! I do not know what has been 
conceded to me — if so insignificant a person may have extorted the 
remark. Perhaps it is a concession that 1 am allowed to rise in 
such a state of mind and body, of collapse and deprivation, as to 
feel but a little spark of indignation raised by the remark, that 
much has been conceded to the counsel for the prisoners ; much 
has been conceded to the prisoners ! Almighty and merciful God, 
who lookest down upon us, what are the times to which we are 
reserved, when we are told that much has been conceded to priso- 
ners who are put upon their trial at a moment like this — of more 
darkness and night of the human intellect than a darkness of the 
natural period of twenty-four hours — that public convenience can- 
not spare a respite of a few hours to those who are accused for their 
lives ; and that much has been conceded to the advocate, almost ex- 
hausted, in the poor remark which he has endeavoured to make 
upon it ! 

My countrymen, I do pray you, by the awful duty which you 
owe your country — by that sacred duty which you owe your char- 
acter (and I know how you feel it) I do obtest you, by the Almighty 
God, to have mercy upon my client — to save him, not from the 
consequences of his guilt, but from the baseness of his accusers, 
and the pressure of the treatment under which I am sinking. With 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 233 

what spirit diJ you leave your habitations this day? In what state 
of mind and heart did you come here from your family ? With 
what sentiments did you leave your children, to do an act of great 
public importance — to pledge yourselves at the throne of Eternal 
Justice, by the awful and solemn obligation of an oath, to do per- 
fect, cool, impartial, and steady justice, between the accuser and 
the accused ? Have you come abroad under the idea, that public 
fury is clamorous for blood — that you are put there under the mere 
formality or ceremonial of death, and ought to gratify that fury with 
the blood for which it seems to thirst? If you are — I have known 
some of you* — more than one, or two, or three — in some of those 
situations, where the human heart speaks its honest sentiments. I 
think I ought to know you well — you ought to know me ; and there 
are some of you who ought to listen to what so obscure an individ- 
ual may say, not altogether without some degree of personal confi- 
dence and respect. I will not solicit your attention, by paying the 
greatest compliment which man can pay to man ; but I hold you 
in regard as being worthy of it ; I will speak such language as I 
would not stoop to hold if 1 did not think you worthy of it. Gen- 
tlemen, I will not be afraid of beginning with what some may think 
I should avoid — the disastrous picture which you must have met 
upon your way to this court. A more artful advocate might en- 
deavour to play with you, in supposing you to possess a degree of 

* One of the persons on the jury to whom the observation was particu- 
iarly directed, was Sir John Ferns, with whom Mr. Curran had been long 
connected by habits of private friendship, and in whose society he had pas- 
sed many of his happiest hours of convivial relaxation. 

The following little impromptu shows, in a striking point of contrast, the 
different styles in which different occasions induced the writer to address 
ihe game individual. 

TO SIR JOHN FERNS, 

WITH A BOTTLE OF CHAMPAIGNE. 

This bottle I've raised from the dust, 
Where for many a year it bad lain, 
Jn hope that one day with the just 
It might rise and might sparkle again. 

And now, my dear Sir John, I send 
This type of good tidings to come, 
That the grave-digojer's empire must end, 
And his prisoners get loose from the tomb. 

J. P. C\ 
f\0 



^34 LIFE OF CtJRRAN. 

pity and of feeling beyond that of any other human being. , But I, 
gentlemen, am not afraid of beginning by warning you against thos^ 
prejudices which all must possess — by speaking strongly against 
them — by striking upon the string — if not strong enough to snap 
it, I will wake it into vibration. Unless you make an exertion be- 
yond the power almost of men to make, you are not fit to try this 
cause. You may preside at such an execution as the witness would 
extol himself for* — at the sentence flowing from a very short inqui- 
ry into reason. But you are not fit to discharge the awful trust of 
honest men coming into the box, indifferent as they stood unsworn, 
to pronounce a verdict of death and infamy, or of existence and of 
honour. You have only the interval between this and pronouncing 
your verdict to reflect ; and the other interval, when you are re- 
signing up your last breath, between your verdict and your grave, 
when you lament that you did not as you ought. 

Do you think I want to flatter your passions? I would scorn 
myself for it. I want to address your reason — to call upon your 
consciences — to remind you of your oaths, and the consequence of 
th^t verdict, which, upon the law and the fact, you must give be- 
tween the accuser and the accused. Part of what I shall say must 
of necessity be addressed to the Court for it is a matter of law.^ — 
But upon this subject, every observation in point of law is so in- 
separably blended with the fact, that I cannot pretend to say that 
I can discharge your attention, gentlemen, even when I address the 
Court. On the contrary I shall the more desire your attention, not 
so much that you may understand what 1 shall say, as what the 
Court shall say, 

* Captain Armstrong, the witness in this case, having been questioned 
by Mr. Curran regarding the death of two countrymen, replied, " We were 
going up Blackmore Hil!,under Sir James Duff; there was a party of rebels 
there. We met three men with green cockades : one we shot — another we 
hanged— and the third we flogged and made a guide off." Thomas Drought, 
Esq. (one of the witnesses for the prisoners) gave in evidence a conversa- 
tion which he had held with Armstrong respecting this transaction. "I 
asked him (said Mr. Drought) how he could possibly reconcile it (o himself 
to deprive those wretches of life, without even the torra of a trial. He ac- 
knowledged that they did so. I asked him whether he expected any pun- 
ishment for it ; and though he did not expect it from government, yet that 
there was an all-powerful Being who would punish him. He said, * you 
know my opinion long ago upon this subject.*" This was the execution 
to which Mr. Curran above alluded. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 235 

** Gentlemen, this indictment is founded upon the statute 25 Ed, 
fll. The statute itself begins with a melancholy observation upon 
the proneness to deterioration, which has been found in all coun- 
tries, unfortunately, to take place in their criminal law, particular- 
ly in the law respecting High Treason. The statute begins with 
reciting, that, in the uncertainty of adjudications, it became diffi^ 
cult to know what was treason, and what was not : and, to remove 
further difficulty, it professes to declare all species of treason that 
should thereafter be so considered ; and, by thus regulating the 
law, to secure the state and the constitution, and the persons of 
those interested in the executive departments of the government, 
from the common acts of violence that might be used to their des- 
truction. The three first clauses of the statute seem to have gone 
a great way indeed upon the subject ; because the object of the 
provisions was to protect the person — and I beg of you to under- 
stand what I mean by person — I mean the natural person ; I mean 
no figure of speech — not the monarch in the abstract, but the natur- 
al man ; the first clause was made without the smallest relation 
to the executive power, but solely to the natural body and person.- 
The words are, " When a man doth compass or imagine the death 
of the king, or of our lady his queen, or their eldest son and heir, 
and thereof be of sufficient proof attainted of open deed by men of 
his condition, he shall be a traitor." This, I say, relates only to 
the natural person of the king. The son and heir of the king is 
mentioned in the same manner; but he has no power, and there- 
fore a compassing his death must mean the death of his natural per- 
son ; and so must it be in the case of the king. To conceive the 
purpose of destroying a common subject was once a felony of 
death ; and that was expressed in the same language, compassing 
and imagining the death of the subject. It was thought right to 
dismiss that severe rigour of the law in the case of the subject; 
but it was thought right to continue it in the case of the king, in 
contradistinction to all the subjects within the realm. 

" The statute, after describing the persons, describes what shall 
be evidence of that high and abominable guilt : it must appear by 
open deed — the intention of the guilty heart must be proved by evi- 
dence of the open deed committed towards the accomplishment of 



336 ^^^'^ ^^^ CURRA^ 

the design. Perhaps in the hurry of speaking — perhaps i'roni the 
mistakes of reporters ; sometimes from one, and sometimes from 
the other, judges are too often made to say that such or such an 
overt act is, if proved to have been committed, ground upon which 
the jury must find the party guilty of the accusation. 1 must deny 
the position, not only in the reason of the thing, but I am fortified 
by the ablest writers upon the law of treason. In the reason of 
the thing ; because the design entertained, and act done, are mat- 
ters for the jury. Whether a party compassed the king's death or 
not, is matter for the jury ; and, therefore, if a certain fact be 
proved, it is nonsense to say that such a conclusion must follow ; 
because a conclusion of law would then be pronounced by the jury, 
not by the court. I am warranted in this by the writers cited by 
Mr. Justice Foster ; and therefore, gentlemen, upon the first count 
in the indictment you are to decide a plain matter of fact : 1st, 
Whether the prisoner did compass and imsgine the death of the 
king? or whether there be any act proved, or apparent means ta- 
ken, which he resorted to for the perpetration of that crime ? Upon 
this subject many observations have already been made before me. 
I will take the liberty of making one : I do not know whether it has 
been made before. Even in a case where the overt act staled has 
of its own nature gone to the person of the king, still it is left to the 
jury to decide, whether it was done with the criminal purpose al- 
leged or not ? In RussePs case there was an overt act of the con- 
spiracy to seize the guards ; natural consequence threatened from 
an act of gross violence so immediately approaching the king's per- 
son, might fairly be said to affect his life ; but still it was left to the 
jury to decide whether that was done for the purpose of compassing 
the king's death. I mention this, because I think it a strong answer 
to those kinds of expressions, which in bad times fall from the 
mouths of prosecutors, neither law nor poetry, but sometimes half 
metaphysical. Laws niay be enacted in the spirit of sound policy, 
and supported by superior reason ; but when only half considered, 
and their provisions half enumerated, they become the plague of 
government, and the grave of principle. It is that kind of refine- 
ment and cant which overwhelmed the law of treason, and brought 
It to a metaphysical death ; the laws are made to pass through a 



LIFC OF CUllRAN. 237 

contorte«l underslantling, vibratory and confused ; and d^ereforc, 
after a small interval from the first enaction of any law in Great 
Britain, the dreams of fancy get around, and the law is lost in the 
mass of absurd comment. Hence it was, that the statute gave it? 
awful declarations to those glossarists, so that if any case should 
arise, apparently within the statute, they were not to indulge them- 
selves in conjecture, but refer to the standard, and abide by the law 
as marked out for them. Therefore, 1 say, that the issue for the 
jury here is to decide, in the words of the statute, whether the priso- 
ners " did compass the death of the king," and whether they can say,. 
upon their oaths, that there is any overt act proved in evidence, 
manifesting an intention of injury to the natural person of the kin^-. 

" I know that the semblance of authority may be used to contra- 
dict me. If any man can reconcile himself to the miserable toil of 
poring over the records of g">jilt, he will find them marked, not in 
black, but in red, the blood of some unfortunate men, leaving the 
marks of folly, barbarity, and tyranny. But I am glad that men. 
who, in some situations, appear not to have had the pulse of honest 
compassion, have made sober reflections in the hour of political dis- 
grace. Such has been the fate of Lord Coke ; who, in the triumph 
and insolence of power, pursued a conduct, which, in the hour of 
calm retreat he regretted in the language of sorrow and disappoint- 
ment. He then held a language which I willingly repeat, ' that a 
conspiracy to levy war was no act of compassing the murder of the 
king.' There he spoke the language of law and good sense ; for a 
man shall not be charged with one crime, and convicted of another. 
It is a narrow and a cruel policy to make a conspiracy to levy war 
an act of compassing the king's death, because it is a separate and 
distinct offence ; because it is calling upon the honest affections of 
the heart, and creating those pathetical effusions which confound 
all distinct principles of law, a grievance not to be borne in a state 
where the laws ought to be certain. 

" This reasoning is founded upon the momentary supposition 
that the evidence is true, for you are to recollect the quarter from 
whence it comes : there has been an attempt, by precipitate confes- 
sion, to transfer guilt to innocence, in order to escape the punish- 
ment of the law. Here, gentlemen, there is evidence of levying 



238 ^^^^ ^^^ CURRAN. 

war, which act, it is said, tends to the death of the king. That is 
a constructive treason, calculated as a trap for the loyalty of a jury, 
therefore you should set bounds to proceedings of that kind; for 
it is an abuse of the law to make one class of offence, sufficiently 
punished already, evidence of anothei-. Every court, and every 
jury, should set themselves against crimes, when they come to de- 
termine upon distinct and specified guilt ; but they are not to en- 
courage a confusion of crimes by disregarding the distinction of 
punishments, nor to show the effusion of their loyalty by an effu- 
sion of blood. 

" I cannot but say, that when cases of this kind have been under 
judgment in Westminster Hall, there was some kind of natural 
reason to excuse this confusion in the reports — the propriety of 
making the person of the king secure : a war immediately adjoining 
the precincts of the palace — a riot in London — might endanger the 
life of the king. But can the same law prevail in every part of the 
British empire? It may be an overt act of compassing the king'55 
death to levy war in Great Britain ; but can it be so in Jamaica, in 
the Bahama Islands, or in Corsica, when it was annexed to the 
British empire ? Suppose at that time a man had been indicted 
there for compassing the king's death, and the evidence was that 
he intended to transfer the dominion of the island to the Genoese 
ov the French ; what would you say, if you were told that was an 
act by which he intended to murder the king? By seizing Corsica 
he was to murder the king! How can there be any immediate 
attempt upon the king's life by such a proceeding? It is not pos- 
sible, and therefore no such consequence can be probably inferred 4 
and therefore I call upon you to listen to the court with respect; 
but I also call upon you to listen to common sense, and to consider 
whether the conspiring to raise war in this country be an overt act 
of compassing the king's death in this country.* I will go further. 

* This point was strongly urged by Bfr. Ponsonby, counsel for John 
Sheares, and by Mr. Curran's colleague, Mr. Plunket ; but the Court de- 
cided that it was untenable. The Prime Serjeant observed upon it with 
more zeal than logical consistency: — "It was ybr this c?ay reserved to 
broach the alarming and monstrous position. I trust in God that the 
authority of such opinions has not gone abroad; and that the rebellion, 
which has for some time ravaged the country, has not been matured by such 
a doctrine." Lord Carleton, instead of couotjenancingso absurd an insinua-" 
tion against the counsel, answered their arguments in the language of com- 
pliment and respect 



LIFE OF CURRAN. QS9 

If the statute of Edward III. had been conceived to make a con- 
spiracy to levy war an overt act of compassing the king's death, it 
would be unnecessary to make it penal by any subsequent statute j 
and yet subsequent statates were enacted for that purpose, which I 
consider an unanswerable argument, that it was not considered as 
coming within the purview of the clause against compassing the 
king's death. Now, gentlemen, you will be pleased to consider 
what was the evidence brought forward to support this indictment. 
I do not think it nece€sary to exhaust your attention by staling at 
large the evidence given by Captain Armstrong. He gave an ac- 
count which we shall have occasion to examine with regard to it^ 
credibility. He stated his introduction, first, to Mr. Henry Sheares, 
afterwards to his brother; and he stated a conversation, which you 
do not forget, so strange has it been ! But, in the whole course of 
his evidence, so far from making any observation, or saying a word 
of connexion with the power at war with the king, he expressly 
said, that the insurrection, by whomsoever prepared, or by what 
infatuation encouraged, was to be a ho7ne exertion, independent of 
any foreign interference whatever. And, therefore, 1 am warranted 
in saying, that such an insurrection does not come within the first 
clause of the statute. It cannot come within the second, of adhering 
to the king's enemies, because that means his foreign enemies; and 
h^re, so far from any intercourse with them, they were totally dis- 
regarded. 

" Adhering to the king's enemies means co-operating with them, 
sending them provisions, or intelligence, or supplying them with 
arms. But I venture to say, that there has not been any one case, 
deciding that any act can be an adherence to a foreign enemy, 
which was not calculated for the advantage of that enemy. In the 
case of Jackson, Hensey, and Lord Preston, the parties had gone 
as far as they could in giving assistance. So it was in Quigley's. 
But^ in addition to this, I must repeat, that it is utterly unnecessary 
that the law should be otherwise, for levying war is of itself a 
crime ; therefore it is unnecessary, by a strained construction, to 
say, that levying war, or conspiring to levy war, should come 
wi',hin any other clause equally penal, but not so descriptive. 



249 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

" But, gentlemen, suppose I am mistaken in both points oi my 
argument — suppose the prisoners (if the evidence were true) did 
compass the king's death, and adhere to the king's enemies : what 
are you to found your verdict upon ? Upon your oaths; what ar6 
they to be founded upon? Upon the oath of the witness : and what 
16 that founded uponf — upon this, and this only — that he does be- 
lieve there is an eternal God, an intelligent supreme existence, 
capable of inflicting eternal punishment for offences, or conferring 
eternal compensation upon man after he has passed the boundary 
of the grave. Bat where the witness believes that he is possessed 
of a perishing soul, and that there is nothing upon which punish- 
ment or reward can be exerted, he proceeds, regardless of the 
number of his offences, and undisturbed by the terrors of exhaust- 
ed fancy, which might save you from the fear that your verdict is 
founded upon perjury. Suppose he imagines that the body is ac- 
tuated by some kind of animal machinery — I know not in what 
language to describe his notions — suppose his opinionof the beau- 
tiful system framed by the almighty hand to be, that it is all folly 
and blindness compared to the manner in which he considers him- 
self to have been created — or his abominable heart conceives his 
ideas, or his tongue communicates his notions ; — suppose him, I say, 
to think so — what is perjury to him? He needs no creed, if he 
thinks his miserable body can take eternal refuge in the grave, and 
the last puff of his nostrils can send his soul into annihilation ! lie 
laughs at the idea of eternal justice, ^nd tells you, that the gfave, 
into which he sinks as a log, forms an intrenchment against the 
throne of God and the vengeance of exasperated justice ! 

" Do you not feel, my fellow-countrymen, a sort of anticipated 
consolation in reflecting upon the religion which gave us comfort in 
our early days, enabled us to sustain the stroke of aiiliction, and 
endeared us to one another ; and, when we see our friends sinking 
into the earth, fills us w'ith the expectation that we rise again — that 
we but sleep for a while to wake for ever. But what kind of com- 
munion can you hold-— what interchange expect— what confidence 
place in that abject slave — that condemned, deiipaired of wretch, 
who acts under the idea that he is only the folly of a moment — ^that 
he cannot step beyond the threshold of the grave — th.-^r. that, which 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 341 

is uu object of terror to the best, and of hope to the confiding, is to 
him contempt or despair ? 

'' Bear with me, my countrymen ; I feel my heart running away 
with me — the worst men only can be cool. What is the law of this 
country ? If the witness does not believe in God, or a future state, 
you cannot swear him. What swear him upon ? Is it upon the 
book or the leaf? You might as well swear him by a bramble or 
a coin. The ceremony of kissing is only the external symbol by 
which man seals himself to the precept, and says, * May God so 
help me, as I swear the truth.' He is then attached to the Divinity 
upon the condition of telling truth ; and he expects mercy from 
Heaven, as he performs his undertaking. But the infidel ! By what 
can you catch his soul ? or by what can you hold it ? You repulse 
him from giving evidence ; for he has no conscience — no hope to 
cheer him — no punishment to dread! What is the evidence touch- 
ing that unfortunate young man? What said his own relation, Mr. 
Shervington ? He had talked to him freely — had known him long. 
What kind of character did he give of him ? Paine was his creed 
and his philosophy. He had drawn his maxims of politics from 
the vulgar and furious anarchy broached by Mr. Paine. His ideas 
of religion were adopted from the vulgar maxims of the same man — 
the scandal of inquiry — the blasphemer of his God as of his king. 
He bears testimony against himself, that he submitted to the un- 
dertaking of reading both his abominable tracts — that abominable 
abomination of all abominations, Paine's Age of Reason ; who pro- y 
fesses to teach mankind, by acknowledging that he did not learn / 
himself! Why not swear the witness upon the vulgar maxims oft 
that base fellow, that wretched outlaw and fugitive from his country \ 
and his God? Is it not lamentable to sec a man labouring under j 
an incurable disease, and fond of his own blotches ? * Do you 
wish,' says he, ' to know my sentiments with regard to politics ; I | 
have learned them from Paine! I do not love a king; and, if no / 
other executioner could be found, I would myself plunge a dagger; 
into the heart of George III. because he is a king. And because 
he is my king, I swear, by the sacred missal of Paine, I would j 
think it a meritorious thing to plunge a dagger into his heart, or i 
whom I had devoted a soul which ^Mr. Paine .says 1 have not to \ 



243 WFf OF CURKAN. 

lend.' Is this the casual effusion of a giddy young man, not con- 
sidering the meaning of what he said? If it were said among a 
parcel of boarding-school misses, where he might think he was 
giving specimens of his courage, by nobly denying religion, there 
might be some excuse. There is a latitude assumed upon some 
such occasions. A little blasphemy and a little obscenity passes 
for wit in some companies. But recollect it was not to a little miss, 
whom he wished to astonish, that he mentioned these sentiments, 
but to a kinsman, a man of that boiling loyalty, I confess I did not 
approve of his conduct in the abstract, talking of running a man 
through the body ;* but I admired the honest boldness of the soldier 
who expressed his indignation in such warm language. If Mr. 
Shervington swore truly. Captain Armstrong must be a forsworn 
witness—- it comes to that simple point. You cannot put it upon 
other ground. I put it to your good sense — I am not playing with 
your understandings — I am putting foot to foot, and credit to credit. 
One or other of the two must be perjured ; which of them is it ? If 
you disbelieve Captain Armstrong, can you find a verdict of blood 
upon his evidence ? 

" Gentlemen, I go further. I know your horror of crimes — 
your warmth of loyalty. They are among the reasons why I re- 
spect and regard you. I ask you, then, will you reject such a wit- 
ness ? or would you dismiss the friend you regarded, or the child 
you loved, upon the evidence of such a witness ? Suppose him to 
tell his own story. ' I went to your friend, or your child — I ad- 
dressed myself in the garb of friendship, in the smile of confidence, 
in order to betray it. I traduced you — spoke all the evil I could 
against you, to inflame him. I told him your father does not love 
you.' If he went to you, and told you this — that he inflamed your 
child, and abused you to your friend, and said, ' I come now to 
increase it, by the horror of superadded cruelty,' would you dis- 
miss from your love or affection the child or the friend you loved 
for years ? You would not prejudge them. You would examine 

*■ This alludes to a part of Mr. Shervington's testimony. *' 1 met Cap- 
tain Clibborti, and told him I was sorry to find that John Armstrong was 
finding the secrets of men in order to discover them. He told me it was a 
different thing- — that the Sheareses wanted to seduce him from his allegi- 
ance. ' Damn him,' said I, ' he should have run them through the body.'^ 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 243 

the consistency of the man's story; you would listen to it with 
doubt, and receive it with hestitation. 

" Says Captain Amstrong, Byrne was my bookseller ; from him 
I bought my little study of blasphemy and obscenity, with which 
I amused myself. — ' Shall I introduce Mr. Sheares to you ? — not 
saying which. What was done then ^ He thought it was not 
right till he saw Captain Clibborn. Has he stated any reason why 
he supposed Mr. Sheares had any wish at all to be introduced to 
him .'' any reason for supposing that Byrne's principles were of 
that kind ? or any reason why he imagined the intercourse was to 
lead to any thing improper ? It is most material that he says he 
never spoke to Byrne upon political subjects : therefore he knew 
nothing of Byrne's principles, nor Byrne of his. But the propo- 
sal was made ; and he was so alarmed, that he would not give an 
answer until he saw his captain. Is not this incredible ? There 
is one circumstance which made an impression upon my mind, that 
he assumed the part of a public informer ; and, in the first instance, 
came to the field with pledgets and bandages. He was scarcely 
off the table when a witness came to his credit. It is the first time 
that I saw a witness taking fright at his own credit, and sending up 
a person to justify his own character. 

" Consider how he has fortified it. He told it all to Captain 
Clibborn ! He saw him every evening, when he returned, like a 
bee, with his thighs loaded with evidence. What is the defence ? 
that the witness is unworthy of belief. My clients say their lives 
are not to be touched by such a man : he is found to be an inform- 
er ; he marks the victim. You know the world too well, not to 
know that every falsehood is reduced to a certain degree of mal- 
leability by an alloy of truth. Such stories as these are not pure 
and simple falsehoods. Look at your Oateses, your Bedloes, and 
Dugdales ! I am disposed to believe, shocking as it is, that this 
■witness had the heart, when he was surrounded by the little proge- 
ny of ray client ; when he was sitting in the mansion in which he 
was hospitably entertained ; when he saw the old mother, sup- 
ported by the piety of her son, and the children basking in the pa- 
rental fondness of tire father ; that he saw the scene, and smiled 
at it ; contemplated the havoc he was to make, consigning them 



344' ^^^^ ^f CURRAN, 

to the storms of a miserable world, without having an anchorage 
in the kindness of a father !* Can such horror exist, and not 
waken the rooted vengeance of an eternal God ? But it cannot 
reach this man beyond the grave ; therefore I uphold him here. I 
can imagine it, gentlemen ; because, when the mind becomes desti- 
tute of the principles of morality and. religion, all within the miser- 
able being is left a black and desolated waste, never cheered by 
the rays of tenderness and humanity ; when the belief of eternal 
justice is gone from the soul of man, horror and execution may set 
up their abode ; I can believe that the witness (with what view I 
cannot say ; with what hope I cannot conjecture ; you may) did 
meditate the consigning of these two men to death, their children 
to beggary and reproach ; abusing the hospitality with which he 
was received, that he might afterwards come here and crown his 
work, having first obtained the little spark of truth, by which his 
mass of falsehood was to be put into animation. 

" I have talked of the inconsistency of the story. Do you be- 
lieve it, gentlemen ? The case of my client is, that the witness is 
perjured ; and you are appealed to, in the name of that ever living 
God whom you revere, but whom he despiseth, to consider that 
there is something to save him from the baseness of such an ac- 
cuser. 

" But I go back to the testimony. I may wander from it ; but 
it is my duty to stay with it. Says he, ' Byrne makes an impor- 
tant application : I was not accustomed to it ; I never spoke to 
him ; and yet he, with whom I had no connexion, introduces me to 
Sheares. This is a true brother.' You see, gentlemen, I state 
this truly : he never talked to Byrne about politics : how could 
Byrne know his principles ? by inspiration 1 He was to know the 
edition of the man as he knew the edition of books. ' You may 
repose all confidence.' I ask not is this true ; but I say it can be 
nothing else than false. I do not ask you to say it is doubtful ; it 

* The writer of this is assured, b}'^ a aientleman now in Dublin, and w1k> 
is free from any political zeal .ivhich could induce him to invent or distort a 
fact, that, upon his dining one day at the house of Henry Sheares, immedi- 
ately before his arrest, he observed Armstrongs, who was one of the guests, 
taking his entertainer's little children upon his knee, and, it was then 
thought, affectionately caressing them. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 245 

iS a case of blood ; of life or death. And you arc to add to the 
terrors of a painful death the desolation of a family, overwhelming 
the aged with sorrow, and the young with infamy ! Gentlemen, I 
should disdain to trifle with you ; 1 am pinning your minds down to 
one point, to show you to demonstration that nothing can save your 
minds from the evidence of such perjury ; not because you may 
think it false, but because it is impossible it can be true. 1 put in- 
to the scales of justice that execrable perjury ; and I put into the 
other the life, the fame, the fortune, the children of my client. 
Let not the balance tremble as you hold it : and, as you hold it 
now, so may the balance of eternal justice be held for you. 

" But is it upon his inconsistency only I call upon you to reject 
him ? I call in aid the evidence of his own kinsman, Mr. Sherv- 
ington, and Mr. Drought ; the evidence of Mr. Bride, and Mr. Gray- 
don. Before you can believe Armstrong, you must believe that all 
these are perjured. What are his temptations to perjury ? the hope 
of bribery and reward : — and he did go up with his sheets of pa- 
per in his hand : here is one ; it speaks treason : here is another ; the 
accused grows paler : here is a third ; it opens another vein. Had 
Shervington any temptation of that kind ? No : let not the honest 
and genuine soldier lose the credit of it. He has paid a great. 
compliment to the proud integrity of the king his master, when he 
did venture, at a time like this, to give evidence, ' I would not. 
have come for a hundred guineas !'* I could not refuse the effjsion 
of my heart, and avoid exclaiming, * May the blessings of God 
pour upon you ; and may you never want a hundred guineas !' 

" There is another circumstance. 1 think I saw it strike your 
attention, my lords. It was the horrid tale of the three peasants 
whom he met upon the road : they had no connexion with the re- 
bels. If they had, they were open to a summary proceeding. He 
hangs up one, ^hoots a second, and administers torture to the body 
of the third in order to make him give evidence. Why, my lords, 
did you feel nothing stir within you .'* Our adjudications have con- 

* When Mr. Shervington was asked, upon his cross-examination bj' the 
counsel for the crown, '* if he had not kindly come forward, upon hearing 
that Captain Armstrong was to be a witness against the Sheareses," he an- 
swered, *' No : I was summoned. I would not have appeared for a hun- 
dred guineas." 



346 ^^^^ ^^ CURRAN. 

demned the application of torture for the extraction of evidence*] 
When a wild and furious assassin had made a deadly attempt upoi 
a life of much public consequence, it was proposed to put him td 
the torture in order to discover his accomplices. I scarcely kno^ 
whether to admire most the awful and impressive lesson given b] 
Felton, or the doctrine stated by the judges of the land. ' No,! 
said he, ' put me not to the torture ; for, in the extravagance of m; 
pain, I may be brought to accuse yourselves.' What say th( 
judges ?— ' It is not allowable, by the law and constitution of Eng^ 
land, to inflict torture upon any man, or to extract evidence undei 
the coercion of personal sufferings.' Apply that to this case ; if 
the unfortunate man did himself dread the application of such an 
engine for the extraction of evidence, let it be an excuse for his 
degradation, that he sought to avoid the pain of body, by public 
infamy. But there is another observation more applicable : says 
Mr. Drought, ' Had you no feeling, or do you think you will es- 
cape future vengeance ?' ' Oh ! sir, I thought you knew my ideas 
too well to talk in that way.' Merciful God ! do you think it is 
tipon the evidence of such a man that you ought to consign a fellow 
subject to death? He who would hang up a miserable peasant to 
gratify caprice, could laugh at remonstrance, and say, ' you know 
my ideas of futurity.' If he thought so little of murdering a fellow 
creature without trial, and without ceremony, what kind of com- 
punction can he feel within himself when you are made the instru- 
ments of his savage barbarity ? He kills a miserable wretch, look- 
ing, perhaps, for bread for his children, and who falls unaccused and 
uncondemned. What compunction can he feel at sacrificing other 
victims, when he considers death as eternal sleep, and the dark- 
ness of annihilation ? These victims are at this moment led out to 
public execution ; he has marked them for the grave ; he will not 
bewail the object of his own work ; they are passing through the. 
vale of death, w^hile he is dozing over the expectancy of mortal an- 
nihilation* 

" Gendemen, I am too weak to follow the line of observation I 
had made ; but I trust I am warranted in saying, that if you weigh 
tfee evidence, the balance will be in favour of the prisoners. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 247 

" But there is another topic or two to which I must solicit your 
attention, if I had been stronger, m a common case I would not 
have said so much ; weak as I am, here I must say more. It may 
be said that the parol evidence may be put out of the case ; that, 
attribute the conduct of Armstrong to folly, or passion, or whatever 
else you please, you may safely repose upon the written evidence. 
This calls for an observation or two. As to Mr. Henry Sheares, 
that written evidence,* even if the hand writing were fully proved, 
does not apply to him : I do not say it was not admissible. The 
writings of Sidney, found in his closet, Avere read ; justly according 
to some ; but I do not wish to consider that now. But I say the 
evidence of Mr. Dwyer has not satisfactorily established the hand- 
writing of John. I do not say it is not proved to a certain extent, 
but it is proved in the very slightest manner that you ever saw pa- 
per proved ; it is barely evidence to go to you, and the witness 
might be mistaken. An unpublished writing cannot be an overt 
act of treason ; so it is laid down expressly by Hale and Foster. A 
number of cases have occurred, and decisions have been pronoun- 
ced, asserting that writings are not overt acts, for want of publica- 
tion ; but if they plainly relate to an overt act proved, they may 
be left to the jury for their consideration. But here it has no re- 
ference to the overt act laid ; it could not have been intended for 
publication until after the unfortunate event of revolution had taken 
place, and therefore it could not be designed to create insurrection. 
Gendemen, I am not counsel for Mr. John Sheares, but I would be 
guilty of cruelty if I did not make another observation. This might 
be an idle composition, or the translation of idle absurdity from the 
papers of another country ; the manner in which it was found leads 
me to think that the more probable. A writing designed for such an 
event as charged would hardly be left in a writing box, unlocked, in a 
room near the hall door. The manner of its finding also shows two 
things ; that Henry Sheares knew nothing of it. for he had an op- 
portunity of destroying it, as Alderman Alexander said he had ; and 
further, that he could not have imagined his brother had such a 
design ; and it is impossible, if the paper had been designed for 
such purposes, that it would not be communicated to him. 

* This written evidence was an address ta the United Irishmen, in the 
hand-writiugof John Sheares. 



248 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

" There is a point to which I will beseech the attention of you? 
lordships. I know your humanity, and it will not be applied mere- 
ly because I am exhausted or fatigued. You have only oije wit- 
ness to any overt act of treason. There is no decision upon the 
point in this country.* Jackson's case was the first : Lord Clon- 
mel made an allusion to ihe point ; but a jury ought not to find guil- 
\y upon the testimony of a single w^itness. It is the opinion of 
Foster, that by the common law, one witness, if believed, was suf- 
ficient. Lord Coke's opinion is that two were necessary. They 
are great names ; no man looks upon the works of Foster with 
more veneration than myself, and I would not compare him with 
the depreciated credit of Coke; 1 would rather leave Lord Coke 
to the character which Foster gives him ; that he was one of the 
ablest lawyers, independent of some particulars, that ever existed 
in England. In the wild extravagance, heat, and cruel reigns of 
the Tudors, such doctrines of treason had gone abroad as drench- 
ed the kingdom with blood. By the construction of crown lawyers 
and the shameful complaisance of juries, many sacrifices had been 
made, and therefore it was necessary to prune away these excesses 
by the stat. of Edward VI. and therefore there is every reason to 
imagine, from the history of the times, that Lord Coke was right in 
saying, that not by new statute, but by the common law, confirmed 
and redeemed by declaratory acts, the trials were regulated. A 
law of Philip and Mary was afterwards enacted ; some think it was 
a repeal of the stat. of Edward VI. some think not. I mention this 
diversity of opinions with this view, that in this country, upon a 
new point of that kind, the weight of criminal prosecution will turn 
the scale in favour of the prisoner ; and that the court will be of 
opinion that the stat. 7 William III. did not enact any new thing 
unknown to the common law, but redeemed it from abuse. What 
was the state of England ? The king had been declared to have 
abdicated the throne : prosecutions, temporising juries, and the ar- 
bitrary construction of judges, condemned to the scaffold those who 
were to protect the crown ; men who kne^v, that, after the destruc- 

* This is not correct : it was the unanimous opinion of the three judges 
of the Court of King's Bench, before whom Jackson was tried, that in Ire- 
land two witne-sps were not necessary in cases of High Treaboji. —See 
Jackson's tria!. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 249 

don of the cottage, the palace was endangered. It was not, then, 
the enaction of any thing new ; it was founded in the caution of the 
times, and derived from the maxims of the constitution. I know 
the peevishness with which Burnet observed upon that statute. He 
is reprehended in a modest manner by Foster. But what says 
Blacksione, of great authority, of the clearest head, and the pro- 
foundest reading ^ He differs from Montesquieu, the French phi- 
losopher. 

" ' In cases of treason there is the accused's oath of allegiance 
to counterpoise the information of a single witness ; and that may, 
perhaps, be one reason why the law requires a double testimony to 
eonvict him : though the principal reason, undoubtedly, is to se- 
cure the subject from being sacrificed to fictitious conspiracies, 
which have been the engines of profligate and crafty politicians in 
all ages.'* 

" Gentlemen, I do not pretend to say that you are bound by an 
English act of parliament. You may condemn upon the testimony 
of a single witness. You, to be sure, are too proud to listen to the 
wisdom of an English law. Illustrious independents \ You may 
murder under the semblance of judicial forms, because you are 
proud of your blessed independence ! You pronounce that to be 
legally done which would be murder in England, because you are 
proud ! You may imbrue your hands in blood, because you are too 
proud to be bound by a foreign act of parliament : and when you 
are to look for what is to save you from the abuse of arbitrary power, 
you will not avail yourself of it, because it is a foreign act of par- 
liament! Is that the independence of an Irish jury.'* Do I see the 
heart of any Englishman move when I say to him, ' Thou servile 
Briton, you cannot condemn upon the perjury of a single witness, 
because you are held in the tight waistcoat of the cogency of an 
act of parliament .'* If power seeks to make victims by judicial 
means, an act of parliament would save you from the perjury of 
abominable malice. Talk not of proud slavery to law, but lament 
that you are bound by the integrity and irresistible strength of right 
reason ; and, at the next step, bewail that the all-powerful Author 
of nature has bound himself in the illustrious servitude of his attri- 

* 4 Bl. Com. 358. 
32 



25b ^If'E OF CURRAN. 

bates, which prevent him thinking what is not true, or doing what 
is not just.' Go, then, and enjoy your independence. At the 
other side of the water your verdict, upon the testimony of a single 
witness, would be murder, j But here you can murder without re- 
proach, because there is no act of parliament to bind you to the 
ties of social life, and save the accused from the breath of a per- 
jured informer. In England a jury could not pronounce a convic- 
tion upon the testimony of the purest man, if he stood alone ; and 
yet what comparison can that case bear with a blighted and marred 
informer? where every word is proved to be perjury, and every 
word turns back upon his soul ? 

" I am reasoning for your country and your children, to the hour 
of your dissolution : let me not reason in vain. I am not playing 
the advocate: you know I am not. 1 put this case to the bench: 
the Stat. 7 W. 3, does not bind this country by its legislative 
cogency ; and will you declare positively, and without doubt, that 
it is common law, or enacting a new one ? Will you say it has no 
weight to influence the conduct of a jury from the authority of a 
great and exalted nation? the only nation in Europe where Liberty 
has seated herself. Do not imagine that the man who praises 
Liberty is singing an idle song: for a moment it may be the song 
of a bird in his cage : I know it may. But you are now standing 
upon an awful isthmus, a little neck of land, where Liberty has 
found a seat. Look about you — look at the stale of the country— 
the tribunals that dire necessity has introduced. Look at this dawn 
of law, admitting the functions of a jury. I feel a comfort. Methinks 
I see the venerable forms of Holt and Hale looking down upon us, 
attesting its countenance. Is it your opinion that bloody verdicts 
are^ necessary— that blood enough has not been shed — that the 
bonds of society are not to be drawn close again, nor the scattered 
fragments of our strength bound together to make them of force; 
but that they are to be left in that scattered state, in which every 
little child may break them to pieces? You will do more towards 
tranquillizing the country by a verdict of mercy. Guard yourselves 
against the sanguinary excesses of prejudice or revenge ; and, 
though you think there is a great call of public justice, let no un- 
merited victim fall. 



LIFE or CURRAN. 251 

" Gentlemen, I have tired you. I durst not relax. The danger 
of my client is from the hectic of the moment, which you have forti- 
tude, I trust, to withstand. In that belief I leave him to you ; and, 
as you deal justice and mercy, so may you find it. And I hope that 
the happy compensation of an honest discharge of your duty may 
not be deferred till a future existence — which this witness does not 
expect — but that you may speedily enjoy the benefits you will have 
conferred upon your country." 

It was between seven and eight o'clock, on the morning of the 
13th of July, when the jury retired to consider their verdict. After 
the deliberation of a few minutes, they returned it, finding both the 
prisoners guilty. As soon as the verdict was pronounced, the un- 
fortunate brothers clasped each other in their arms. They were 
brought up for judgment at three o'clock on the same day, upon 
which occasion they both addressed the court. 

Henry, who had a numerous family, was proceeding to request a 
short respite ; but, when he came to mention his wife and children, 
he was so overwhelmed with tears, that he found it impossible to 
goon. His brother spoke with more firmness, and at more length. 
He began by strenuously disavowing the sanguinary intentions that 
had been imputed to him in consequence of the unpublished address 
to the insurgents which had been found in his hand-writing, and 
produced in evidence against him. " The accusation (said he) of 
which I speak, while I linger here yet a few minutes, is * that of 
holding out to the people of Ireland a direction to give no quarter 
to the troops fighting for its defence.' I cannot only acquit my soul 
of such an intention, but I declare, in the presence of that God be- 
fore whom I must shortly appear, that the favourite doctrine of my 
heart was — that no human hting should suffer death, but where abso- 
lute necessity required zV." 

After having spoken for a considerable time to the same effect, 
he proceeded. " Now, my lords, I have no favour to ask of the 
court. My country has decided that I am guilty ; and the law says 
that I shall suffer : it sees that I am ready to suffer. But, my lords, 
I have a favour to request of the court that does not relate to myself. 
I have a brother, whom I have ever loved dearer than myself; — " 
but it is not from any affection for him aloue that I am induced to 



359 ^li^ E OF CURRAN. 

make the request ; he is a man, and therefore, I hope, prepared to 
die, if he stood as I do — though I do not stand unconnected ; but he 
stands more dearly connected. In short, my lords, to spare your 
feelings and my own,-I do not pray that I should not die ; but that 
the husband, the father, the brother, and the son, all comprised, in 
one person, holding these relations, dearer in life to him than any 
man I know ; for such a man I do not pray a parden, for that is not 
in the power of the court; but I pray a respite for such time as the 
court, in its humanfty and discretion, shall think proper. You have 
heard, my lords, that his private affairs require arrangement. I 
have a further room for asking it. If immediately both of us be 
taken oft an aged and reverend mother, a dear sister, and the most 
aftectionate wife that ever lived, and six children, will be left with- 
out protection or provision of any kind. When I address myself to 
your Lordships, it is with the knowledge you will have of all the 
sons of our aged mother being gone : two perished in the service of 
the king, one very recently. I only request, that, disposing of me 
With what swiftness either the public mind or justice requires, a 
respite may be given to my brother, that the family may acquire 
strength to bear it all. That is ail I wish. I shall remember it to 
my last breath ; and I will ofifer up my prayers for you to that Being 
who has endued us all with sensibility to feel. This is all I ask." 

To this affecting appeal. Lord CarletoA replied, " In the awful 
duty imposed on me, no man Can be more sensibly affected than I 
am, because I knew the very valuable and respectable father and 
mother from whom you are both descended. I knew and revered 
their virtues. One of them, happily for himself, is now no more ; 
the other, for whom I have the highest personal respect, probably, 
by the events of this day, may be hastened into futurity. It does 
not rest with us, after the conviction which has taken place, to hold 
out mercy— that is for another place ; and I am afraid, in the pres- 
ent situation of public affairs, it will be difficult to grant even that in- 
dulgence which you, John Sheares, so pathetically request for your 
brother. With respect to one object of your soliciting time for your 
brother, unfortunately it could be of no use ; because, by the at- 
tainder, he will forfeit all his property^ real and personal : nothing 
to be settled will remain." 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 253 

His lordship then, after some preliminary observations, pro^ 
aounced sentence of death upon the prisoners ; and, at the prayer 
of the attorney-general, directed that it should be executed upon 
them on the succeeding day. 

The following is a copy of Mr. John Sheares' farewell letter to 
his family. It is addressed to his sister, to whom he had been most 
tenderly attached. It may not have much literary merit ; " but na- 
ture is there, which is the greatest beauty." 

Kilmainham Prison. — Wednesday night. 
" The troublesome scene of life is nearly closed ; and 
the hand that now traces these lines, in a short time will be no lon- 
ger capable of communicating to a beloved family the sentiments 
of his heart. 

" It is now eleven o'clock, and I have only time to address my 
beloved Julia in a short, eternal farewell. Thou sacred Power !•— 
whatever be thy name and nature — who has created us the frail 
and imperfect creatures that we are, hear the ardent prayer of one 
now on the eve of a most awful change. If thy Divine Providence 
can be affected by mortal supplication, hear and grant, I most 
humbly beseech thee, the last wishes of a heart that has ever 
adored thy greatness and thy goodness. Let peace and happiness 
once more visit the bosom of my beloved family. Let a mild 
grief succeed the miseries they have endured ; and, when an af- 
fectionate tear is generously shed over the dust of him who caused 
their misfortunes, let all their ensuing days glide on in union and 
domestic harmony. Enlighten my beloved brother : to him and 
his invaluable wife grant the undisturbed enjoyment of their mutual 
love ; and, as they advance, let their attachment increase. Let 
my Julia, my feeling, my too feeling Julia, experience that conso- 
lation which she has often imparted to others : let her soul repose 
at length in the consummation of all the wishes of her excellent 
heart : let her taste lliat happiness her virtues have so well merit- 
ed. For my other sisters provide those comforts their situation 
requires. To my mother, — O, Eternal Power! what gift shall I 
wish for this matchless parent.'* Restore her to that peace which 
J have unfgrtunately torn from her : let her forget me in the cease- 



254 ^IFE OF CITRRAN.' 

less affections of my sisters, and in their prosperity : let her taste 
that happiness whjch is best suited to her affectionate heart ; and, 
when at length she is called home, let her find, in everlasting bliss, 
the due reward of a life of suffering virtue. 

" Adieu, my dear Julia ! My light is just out. The approach of 
darkness is like that of death, since Wh alike require me to say 
ferewell ! farewell, for ever ! O, my dear family, farewell ! — Fare- 
well, for ever ! 

" J. S." 

In the cemetery of the church of St. Michan's in Dublin there 
are vaults for the reception of the dead, of which the atmosphere 
has the peculiar quality of protracting for many years the process 
of animal decay. It is not unusual to see there the coffins crum- 
bling away from around what they were intended for ever to con- 
ceal, and thus giving up once more to human view their contents, 
still pertinaciously resisting the influence of time. In this place 
the unfortunate brothers were deposited ; and in this state of unde- 
signed disinterment their remains may be seen to this day, the 
heads dissevered from the trunks, and " the hand that one traced 
those lines" not vet mouldered into dust. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 255 



CHAPTER XIL 

Trials of M'Cann, Byrne, and Oliver Bond — Reynolds the informer— Lord 
Edward Fitzgerald — his attainder— Mr. Curran's conduct upon the state 
trials — Lord Kilwarden's friendship — Lines addressed by Mr. Curran to 
Lady Charlotte Rawdon— Theobald Wolfe Tone — his trial and death. 

The trial of the Sheareses was followed by that of John M'Cann 
on the 17th of July, of William Michael Byrne on the 20th, and 
Oliver Bond on the 23d of the same month. These were among 
the persons who had been at the head of the United Irishmen in 
the metropolis, and whom the government, upon information com- 
municated by one of their associates, had arrested in the preced- 
ing March. Mr. Curran acted as- leading counsel for them all ; 
but his speeches in the two former cases having been entirely sup- 
pressed,* the present account must be confined to his defence 
of Bond. 

This was considered by the bar as the most powerful of his ef- 
forts upon the state trials of this year ; but those who were present 
at its delivery scarcely recognise it amidst the defects and distor- 
tions of the published report. There exists, however, another, a 
shorter, but a much more correct one, from which some extracts 
shall be inserted here. Mr. Curran has been represented, hy the 
detractors of his reputation, as surrounded, during those trials, by 
an admiring populace, whose passions, instead of endeavouring to 
control, he was rather anxious to exasperate, by presenting them 
with exaggerated pictures of the calamities of the times. It is not 
true that his audiences were of this description : one of the most 
honourable circumstances of his life is the fact that they were of a 
far different kind. He was encompassed, indeed, by men whose 
passions were sufficiently inflamed, but they were passions which it 
required no ordinary courage in the advocate to brave, and to de- 
spise. In his defence of Bond he was repeatedly interrupted, not 
by bursts of applause, but by violence and menace ; with what ef- 
fect will appear in the course of the following passages. 

* M'Cann and Byrne were convicted and executed. 



f 



256 Li^^ ^^ cuhran. 

" Gentlemen, much pains has been taken to warm you, and then 
you are intreated to be cool ; when the fire has been kindled, it has 
been spoken to, and prayed to be extinguished. What is that ?"* 
[Here Mr. Curran was again interrupted by the tumult of the au- 
ditors ; it was the third time that he had been obliged to sit down : 
on rising he continued,] " I have very little, scarcely any hope 
of being able to discharge my duty to my unfortunate client, per- 
haps most unfortunate in having me for his advocate. I know not 
whether to impute these inhuman interruptions to mere accident ; 
but I greatly fear they have been excited by prejudice." 

[The Court said they w^ould punish any person who dared to in- 
terrupt the counsel for the prisoner. " Pray, Mr. Curran, proceed 
on stating your case ; we will take care, with the blessing of God, 
that you shall not be interrupted."] 

" You have been cautioned, gentlemen, against prejudice. I also 
urge the caution, and not with less sincerity : but what is the preju- 
dice against which 1 would have you armed ? I will tell you : it is 
that pre-occupation of mind that tries the accused before he is judi- 
cially heard ; that draws those conclusions from passion which 
should be founded on proof, and that suffers the temper of the mind 
to be dissolved and debased in the heat of the season. It is not 
against the senseless clamour of the crowd, feeling impatient that the 
idle discussion of fact delays the execution, that I warn you. No : 
you are too proud, too humane, to hasten the holiday of blood. It 
jS not against any such disgraceful feelings that I warn you. I wish 
to recall your recpllections to your own minds, to guard you against 
the prejudice of elevated and honest understanding, against the pre- 
judice of your virtues. 

" It has been insinuated, and with artful applications to your feel- 
ings of national independence, that I have advanced, on a former 
occasion, the doctrine that you should be bound in your decisions 
by an English act of parliament, the statute of William III. Reject 
the unfounded accusation ; nor believe that I assail your indepen- 

* This question was occasioned by a clash of arms among the military 
that thronged the court ; some of those who were nearest to the advocate 
appeared, from their looks artd gestures, about to offer him personal vio- 
lence, upon which, fixing his eye sternly on them, he exclaimed, ** You may 
assassinate, but you shall not intimidate me." 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 257 

iience, because I instruct your judgment and excite your justice- No : 
the statute of Williana HI. does not bind you; but it instructs you 
upon a point which before was enveloped in doubt. The morality 
and wisdom of Confucius, of Plato, of Socrates, or of Tully, does 
not bind you, but it may elevate and illumine you ; and in the same 
way have British acts ^( parliament reclaimed you from barbarism. 
By the statute of William III. two witnesses are necessary, in ca- 
ses of high treason, to a just and equal trial between the sovereign 
and the subject; and Sir William Blackstone, one of the wisest and 
best authorities on the laws of England, states two witnesses to be 
but a necessary defence of the subject against the profligacy of min- 
isters. In this opinion he fortifies himself with that of Baron Mon- 
tesque, who says, that, where one witness is sufficient to decide be- 
tween the subject and the state, the consequences are fatal to lib- 
erty ; and a people so circumstanced cannot long maintain their 
independence. The oath of allegiance, which every subject is 
supposed to have taken, stands upon the part of the accused 
against the oath of his accuser ; and no principle can be more wise 
or just than that a third oath is necessary to turn the balance. 
Neither does this principle merely apply to the evidence of a com- 
mon and impeached informer, such as you have heard this day, but 
to that of any one witness, however high and respectable his char- 
acter." 

The informer in question was Thomas Reynolds,* a name that 

* Reynolds was a silk-mercer of Dublin, who had taken a very active 
part in the conspiracy. He was, in 1797, a colonel of the United Irishmen, 
afterwards treasurer and representative of a county, and finally a delegate 
for the province of Leinster. As the time of the general insurrection ap- 
proached, either remorse, or the hopes of reward, induced him to apprize 
the government of the danger. Having previously settled his terms (500 
guineas in hand, and personal indemnity) through Mr. Cope, a Dublin Mer- 
chant, he gave information of an intended meeting of the Leinster delegates 
at Mr. Bond^s house, upon which those persons, among whom were M'Cann 
and Byrne, were arrested in the month of March. The evidence of Rey- 
nolds, when connected with the papers that were seized, was so conclusive 
^gainst the three who were tried, that no line of defence remained but to 
impeach his testimony. The following extracts from Mr. Curran's cross- 
examination of him will show the manner in which this was attempted, 

TJiomas Reynolds cross-examined by Mr. Curran, 

^. You talked of yourself as a married roan : who was your wife '? 
A. Her nam? was Witherington. 

33 



25Q LIFE OF CURftAN. 

will be long reme^ibered in Ireland, a^d of which the'celebnty has 
been extended to England, by some late discussions of his charac- 

Q. Whose daughter ? 

A. The daughter of Catherine and William Witherington, of Grafton- 
street. 

Q. She has brothers and sisters ? 
A. One sister and two brothers. 
Q, How long are you married ? 
A. I was married upon the 25th of March, 1794. 
Q^ You were young when, your father died I 
A. I was about sixteen years of age. 

Q. I think your mother carried on the business after his death ' 
A. She did. 

Q.. Do you recollect at that time whether, upon any occasion, you were 
charged, perhaps erroneously, with having taken any of her money ? 
A. No, sir, I do not recollect having heard any such charge. 
Q. You have sisters ? 
. A. 1 have, and had sisters. 

Q,. Some of them were living at the time of your father's death ? 
A. All that are now living were : there were more, but they died. 
<^. Do you recollect having had any charge made of stealing trinkets- or 
any thing valuable belonging to those sisters ? 

A. Never. 1 never was charged with taking any thing valuable belong- 
ing to any of my sisters, 

Q,. Were you ever charged with having procured a skeleton key to open 
a lock belonging to your mother ? 
A. I was. 

Q. I do not ask you whether the charge were true or not ; but you say 
there Was a charge of that kind ? 
A. I say I was told my mother said so. 
Q,. She did riot believe it I suppose ? 
A. She did not say any thing she did not believe. 
Q. And she said it ? 

A. I heard So ; and I have no reason to doubt it, 
Q. k was tio open a drawer ? 
A. No : it was to open an iron chest. 
Q^ Where there were knives and forks kept ? 

Ar It is not usual to keep such things there, I believe papers were kept 
there. Mr. Warren was my mother's partner : he kept her in ignorance 
and djd not supply her with money. * 

Q. Do you not believe that your mother made this charge ^ 
A. I believe she thought it at the time. She was a woman of truth • 
though, at times extremely passionate. I wish to say this :— You ask me 
whether 1 ever was accused of stealing money , or other valuables or trinkets 
trom my sisters : 1 was not ; but I was accused of stealing my mother's 
trmkets, I was then about sixteen years of age. 

Q,. During the partnership between Mr. Warren and your mother do vou 
recollect any thing about a piece of lutstring ? "^ 

A. 1 do, perfectly well. 
Q. Was any charge made of stealing that ? 

A. The very same charge. I was charged with stealing the lutstring to 
give It to a girl, and that I also took my mother's jewels for the same pur- 
pose ' '^ 

•^^^'hr*^^ charge consisted of two parts-the taking, and the manner 
m which they were given away ? &» ^ v uiai^c* 

A. If you will have it so. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. §55 

ter in the British parliament. This man had been the principal 
witness for the crown upon the trials of M'Cann and Byrne ; and 

Q I am not asking you whether you committed any facts of this kind or 
Bot, but whether the charges were made ? 

A. I tell you the charges were made ; and I took the things. 

Q,. Then you committed the theft, and you were charged with the steal- 
ing ? 

A. Both of the facts were true. 

Q. I did not ask you as to the skeleton key ? 

A. That chaise was untrue. 

Q. It did not fit the lock? 

A. I had no such key : the charge was unfounded ; the others were true. 

Q. How long i? Mrs. Witherington, your mother-in-law, dead ? 

A. Twelve months, last April. 

Q. Where did she die ? 

A. In Ash-street : a part of the house was my office, and connected with 
the house. 

Q. How long did she live there ? 

A. About ten months. 

Q. Do you recollect what the good old lady died of ? 

A. I do not know ; but heard it was a mortification in her bowels : she 
was complaining badly for some days. 

Q. Had there been any medicine brought to her? 

A. I recollect perfectly well, after she was ill, medicine Was brought her. 

Q,. By whom f 

A. By me. 

Q,. Are you a physician ? 

A. No : but 1 will tell you. A Mr. Fitzgerald, a relation of our family, 
who had been an apothecary, and quitted business, left me a box of medi- 
cines, containing castor oil, cream of tartar, rhubarb, tartar emetic, and 
such things. I had been subject to a pain in my stomach, for which he 
gave me a quantity of powders in small papers, which I kept for use, and 
Found great relief from : they saved my life. I asked Mrs. Reynolds for 
one of these papers to give Mrs. Witherington, and it was given to her. 

Q,. It did not save her life ? 

A. No, sir ; and I am sorry for it. 

Q. You paid her a sum of money ? 

A. I did. 

Q. How much ? 

A. 300/. 

Q,. How long before her death ? 

A. About a fortnight or three weeks : I got her receipt, and made my 
clerk account for it in my books. 

Q Were you ever charged with stealing that money ? 

A. I never heard that such a charge was made : none of the family ever 
spoke of it to my face. 

Q. Captain Witherington is the son of your mother-in-law ? 

A. He is. 

Q.. Did he make that chaise ? 

A. Not to myself. 1 will mention a circumstance : she had a bond, and 
gave it to Mr. Jones to purchase a commission ; he said the money could 
dot be got ; and the 300/. was asked to purchase the commission ; and 1 al- 
ways thought that her son, Edward Witherington, got that money. She 
died suddenly, and had not made a wilL 

Q, She died suddenly ? 

A. She died unexpectedly. 



ggO LIFE OF CtJRRAN. 

it is not improbable that a tenderness for his reputation had occa- 
sioned the suppression of Mr. Curran's defences in those cases. 
The following description of him by Mr. Curran, in Bond's case, has 
been omitted in the common report : 

" I know that Reynolds has laboured to establish a connexion 
between the prisoner and the meeting held at his house ; but how 
does he manage .'* he brings forward asserted con versai ions with 
persons who cannot confront him — with M'Cann, whom he has sent 
to the grave, and with Lord Edward Fitzgerald, whose premature 
death leaves his guilt a matter upon which justice dares not to pro- 
nounce. He has never told you that he has spoken to any of these 
in the presence of the prisoner. Are you then prepared, in a case 
of life and death, of honour and of infamy, to credit a vile informer, 
the perjurer of an hundred oaihs — a wretch whom pride, honour, or 
religion could not bind ? The forsaken prostitute of every vice calls 
upon you, with one breath, to blast the memory of the dead, and 
to blight the character of the living. Do you think Reynolds to 
be a villain .'* It is true he dresses like a gentleman ; and the con- 
fident expression of his countenance, and the tones of his voice, 
savour strong of growing authority. He measures his value by 
the coffins of his victims ; and, in the field of evidence, appreciates 
iiis fame as the Indian warrior does in fight — by the number of 
scalps with which he can swell his triumphs. He calls upon you, 
by the solemn league of eternal justice, to accredit the purity of a 
conscience washed in his own atrocities. He has promised and 
betrayed — he has sworn and forsworn ; and, whether his soul shall 
go to heaven or to hell, he seems altogether indifferent, for he tells 
you that he has established an interest in both. He has told you 
that he has pledged himself to treason and to allegiance,, and that 
both oaths has he contemned and broken.* At this time, when 

Q. She died in forty-eight hours after taking this powdef, which you gave 
to cure her ? 

A. She took the paper on Friday evening, and died on Sunday morning. 

* The following is the list of Reynolds' oaths. 

Q. (By Mr. Curran). Can you just tott up the different oaths that you 
took upon either side ? 
A. I will give the particulars. 
Q,. No, you may mention the gross. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 261 

reason is affrighted from her seat, and giddy prejudice takes the 
reins — when the wheels of society are set in conflagration by the 
rapidily of their own motion — at such a time does he call upon a 
jury to cr'^dit a testimony blasted by his own accusation. Vile, 
however, as this execrable informer must feel himself, history, alas ! 
holds out too much encouragement to his hopes ; for, however 
base, and however perjured, I recollect few instances, in cases be- 
tween the subject and the crown, where informers have not cut 
keen, and rode awhile triumphant on public prejudice. 1 know of 
few instances wherein the edge of his testimony has not been fatal, 
or only blunted by the extent of its execution, and retiring from 
the public view beneath an heap of its own carnage." 

Mr. Curran's parting words to the jury in this case have been 
also omitted in the printed collection of his speeches. 

" You have been emphatically called upon to secure the state by 
a condemnation of the prisoner. I am less interested in the con- 
dition and political happiness of. this country than you are, for 
probably 1 shall be a shorter while in it. I have, then, the great- 
er claim on your attention and your confidence, when I caution you 

A. No ; I will mention the particulars. I took an oath of secrecy in the 
county meeting — an oath to my captains, as colonel. After this I took an 
oath, it has been said — I do not deny it, nor do I say I took it, I was so 
alarmed ; but I would have taken one if required- when the United irish- 
men were designing to kill me, 1 took an oath before a county member, tiiat 
I had not betrayed the meeting at Bond's.* After this 1 took an oath of al- 
legiance. 

Q. Had you ever taken an oath of allegiance before ? 

A. After this, I took an oath before the privy council. I took two, at dif- 
ferent times, upon giving informations respecting these trials. I have ta- 
ken three since, one upon each of the trials ; and, before I took any of 
them, I had taken the oath of allegiance. 

* Upon one occasion Reynolds saved himself from the vengeance of those vyhom he had 
betrayed, in a way that was more creditable to his presence of mind. Before he had yet 
publicly declared his infidelity to the cause of the United Irishmen, as one of their leaders, 
Samuel Neilson, was passing at the hour of midnight through the streets of Dublin, he sud- 
denly encountered Reynolds, standing alone and unarmed Neilson, who was an athletic 
man, and armed, rushed upon him, and commanded him, upon pain of instant death, to be 
silent and to accompany him Reynolds obeyed, and suffered himself to be dragged along 
Ihrouii'h several dark and narrow lanes, till they arrived at an obscure and retired pHSsage in 

the liberties of Dublin. Here Neilson presented a pistol to his prisoner's breast " What," 

Sfiid the indignant conspirator, " should I do to the villain who could insinuate himstlf into 
my confidence for the purpose of betraying me ?" Reynolds, in a firm tone, replied, " You 
sho'ild shoot him through the heart." (Veilson was so struck bj this reply, that, though 
his suspicions were not removed, he changed his purpose, and putting up his pistol, allowed 
the other to retire. 

This fact is given as related by an eminent Irish barrister, to whom it was cOHimunicated 
by one of the parties. 



262 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

against the greatest and most fatal revolution — that of the sceptre, 
into the hands of the informer. These are probably the last words 
I shall ever speak to you ; but these last are directed to your sal- 
vation, and that of your posterity, when they tell you that the 
reign of the informer is the suppression of the law. My old friends, 
I tell you, that, if you surrender yourselves to the mean and dis- 
graceful instrumentality of your own condemnation, you will mark 
yourselves 6t objects of martial law — you will give an attestation 
to the British minister that you are fit for, and have no expectation 
of any other than, martial law — and your liberties will be flown, 
never, never to return ! Your country will be desolated, or only 
become the gaol of the living; until the informer, fatigued with 
slaughter, and gorged with blood, shall slumber over the sceptre of 
perjury No pen shall be found to undertake the disgusting office 
of your historian ; and some future age shall ask — what became of 
Ireland ? Do you not see that the legal carnage which takes place 
day after day has already depraved the feelings of your wretched 
population, which seems impatient and clamorous for the amuse- 
ment of an execution. It remains with you— in your determina- 
tion it lies — whether that population shall be alone composed of 
four species of men — the informer to accuse, the jury to find guil- 
ty, the judge to condemn, and the prisoner to suffer. It regardeth 
not me what impressions your verdict shall make on the fate of this 
country ; but you it much regardeth. The observations I hav6 of- 
fered, the warning I have held forth, I bequeath you with all the 
solemnity of a dying bequest ; and oh ! may the acquittal of your 
accused fellow-citizen, who takes refuge in your verdict from the 
vampire who seeks to suck his blood, be a blessed and happy pro- 
mise of speedy peace, confidence, and security, to this wretched, 
distracted, and self-devouring country !"* 

The preceding trials were immediately followed by an act of at- 
tainder against three of the conspirators who had previously perish- 
ed, and whose property and consideration pointed them out as ob- 

* Blr. Bond was convkled, and sentenced to die ; but, in consequence 
of a negociation entered into between the &;overnment and the state prison- 
ers, of which one of the articles proposed^ by the latter was that his life 
should be spared, he was respited. Fir was shortly after carried off by an 
attack ot apoplexy, ' 



LIFE OF CURRAN. ggg 

jects of this measure of posthumous severity. One of these was 
Lord Edward Fitzigerald,* a young nobleman, whose high connex- 
ions and personal qualities excited the most lively sympathy for 
his unfortunate end. He was one of the leaders, against whom 
Reynolds had given information ; and for some weeks had contri- 
ved, by disguising and secreting himself, to elude the pursuit of the 
officers of justice. At length he was traced to an obscure house in 
the metropolis, and apprehended. He made a desperate resistance 
and shortly after died in prison, from the wounds which he had re- 
ceived in the struggle. His widow and infant children petitioned 
against the bill of attainder, upon which occasion Mr. Curran was 
heard as their counsel at the bar of the House of Commons.! 

His speech upon this question is imperfectly reported ; but even 
had it been more correctly given, the leading topics wodd be found 
of too abstract a nature to attract the general reader. It still con- 
tains, like almost all his arguments upon the most technical sub- 
jects, passages of feeling and interest. At this period he could 
never refrain, no matter what the occasion might be, from giving 
expression to the mingled sentiment of melancholy and indignation 
with which the scenes that were passing before him had filled his 
mind. 

" Upon the previous and important question, namely, the guilt 
of Lord Edward, (without the full proof of which no punishment 
can be just), I have been asked i^y the committee if I have any de- 
fence to go into. I was confounded by the question, which I could 
not answer ; but, upon a very little reflection, I see, in that very 
confusion, the most conclusive proof of the injustice of the bill : 
for, what can be more flagrantly unjust than to inquire into a fact 
of the truth or falsehood of which no human being can have knowl- 
edge, save the informer who comes forward to assert it ^ Sir, I now: 
finswer the question— I have no defensive evidence : it is impossi- 
ble that I should. I have often of late gone to the dungeon of the- 
captive ; but never have I gone to the grave of the dead to receive 
instructions for his defence— nor, in truth, have I ever before been 

nalfJarve^^^^^ ^^^ ^^'^^ Messrs. Cornelius Grogan, and Beauchamp Bage- 
t August, 1798, 



264 I-IFE OF CURRAN. 

at the trial of a dead man ; I therefore offer no evidence upon this 
inquiry, against the perilous example of which I do protest on be- 
half of the public, and against the cruelty and injustice of which 
I do protest ir) the name of the dead father, whose memory is sought 
to be dishonoured, and of his infant orphans, whose bread is sought 
to be taken away." 

The allusion in the following passage to the amiable character 
of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, will lose much of its force to those who 
have heard nothing of that unfortunate nobleman, except his fate. 
His private excellencies were so conspicuous, that the officer of the 
crown, who moved for leave to bring in the bill of attainder, could 
not refHin from bearing ample testimony to them : " his political 
offences he could not mention without grief; and were it consistent 
with the principles of public justice, he would wish that the record- 
ing angel should let fall a tear, and wash them out for ever." 

" One topic more," said Mr. Curran, " you will permit me to 
add. Every act of this sort ought to have a practical morality 
flowing from its principle. Jf loyalty and justice require that these 
infants should be deprived of bread, must it not be a violation of 
that principle to give them food or shelter ? Must not every loyal 
and just man wish to see them (in the words of the famous Golden 
Bull) always poor and necessitous, and for ever accompanied by 
the infamy of their father ; languishing in continued indigence, and 
finding their punishment in living, and their relief in dying : and if 
the widowed mother should carry the orphan heir of her unfortu- 
nate husband to the gate of any man who might feel himself touched 
by the sad vicissitudes of human affairs ; who might feel a compas- 
sionate reverence for the noble blood that flowed in his veins, no- 
bler than the royalty that first ennobled it ; that, like a rich stream, 
rose till it ran and hid its fountain ; if remembering the many no- 
ble qualities of his unfortunate father, his heart melted over the ca- 
lamities of the child ; if his bosom swelled, i{ his eyes overflowed, 
if his too precipitate hand was stretched out by his pity or his 
gratitude to the poor excommunicated sufferers, how could he jus- 
tify the rebel tear, or the traitorous humanity ?" 

Mr. Curran's conduct upon these memorable causes exposed his 
character at the time to the foulest misrepresentation. The furi- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 265 

ous and the timid considered it an act of loyalty to brand as little 
better than a traitor the advocate, who in defending the accused, 
ventured to demand those legal privileges, and that fair, impartial 
hearing, to which, by the constitution of their country, they were 
entitled. He often received, as he entered the court, anonymous 
letters threatening his life, if he should utter a syllable that might 
bring discredit upon the public measures of the day. Even in the 
house of commons he had, in the preceding year, to meet the 
charge of having forfeited the character of a *' good subject" by 
his efforts for his clients. " I am heavily censured," said he, " for 
having acted for them in the late prosecutions. I feel no shame at 
such a charge except that of its being made at such a time as this ; 
that to defend the people should be held out as an imputation upon 
the king's counsel, when the people are prosecuted by the state. I 
think every counsel is the property of his fellow subjects. If, in- 
deed, because I wore his majesty's gown I had declined my duty, 
or had done it weakly or treacherously ; if I had made that gown a 
mantle of hypocrisy, and had betrayed my client, or sacrificed him 
to any personal view, I might, perhaps, have been thought wiser 
by those who have blamed me, but 1 should have thought myself 
the basest villain upon earth." And in a letter to Mr. Grattan 
some years after, alluding to the same subject, he says, " but what 
were those attacks f Slanders provoked by a conduct of which 
my friends, as well as myself, had reason to be proud — slanders cast 
upon me by the very men whose want of wisdom or humanity threw 
upon me the necessity of pursuing that conduct which provoked 
their vengeance, and their misrepresentations. Thank God ! I 
did adopt and pursue it, under the pressure of uninterrupted at- 
tacks upon my character and fortune, and frequently at the hazard 
of my life. I trust that while I have memory, that conduct will re- 
main indelibly engraven upon it, because it will be there a record 
of the most valuable of all claims — a claim upon the gratitude of 
ray own conscience." 

In resisting such attacks, or in braving any more aggravated 
measures of political hatred, Mr. Curran might have stood alone, 
and have looked with calmness to the result ; but gratefully to his 
fiVfn feelings, and honourably for others, he was not thus abandoa- 

U 



36B LIFE OF CURIIAN. 

id to his own protection. It was now that he was enabled to ap* 
Jjreciate the full value of some of the intimacies of his youth, by 
finding in his own case how tenderly the claims of the ancient friend 
and companion were respected in a season of general alarm, dis- 
trust, and unnatural separation. Had it not been for the Interfer- 
ence of Lord Kilwarden, his character and repose would have been 
more frequently invaded ; but that virtuous person, whose mind 
was too pure to be sullied by party rancour, discountenanced every 
proposal to persecute his friend ; and never failed to check, as far 
as his authority could do so, any acts of malignity which might 
have been adopted Without his knowledge.* 

* As an example of the spirit of petty persecution to which he was ex- 
posed from persons in subordinate authority, it may be mentioned, that in 
the year 1798, when the military were billeted throughout the country, a 
party of seventeen soldiers, accompanied by their wives, or their profligate 
companions, and by many children, and evidently selected for the purpose 
of annoyance, were, without any previous notice, quartered on Mr. Cur- 
tan's house ; b^t the moment that Lord Kilwarden heard of the circum- 
stance, the nuisance was removed. 

There is another instance of similar interposition to whichMr. Curran al- 
ludes in his speech on behalf of Hevey, and of which the particulars are too 
honourable to Lord Kilwarden to be omitted. Mr. Curran, in that case, 
mentioned, that *' a learned and respected brother barrister had a silver cup, 
and that Major Sandys (the keeper of the provost prison) having heard that it 
had for many years borne the inscription of * Erin go brach,' or ' Ireland 
' for ever,' considered this perseverance in guilt for such a length of years as 
a forfeiture of the delinquent vessel ; and that his poor friend was accord- 
ingly robbed of his cup." The gentleman in question was Mr. M'Nally. 
The manner of the robbery is characteristic of the times : a Serjeant wait- 
ied upon him, and delivered a verbal command from Major Sandys to sur- 
render the cup ; Mr. M'Nally refused, and commissioned the messenger to 
carry back such an answer as so daring a requisition suggested. The Ser- 
jeant, a decent, humane Englishman, and who felt an honest awkwardness 
at being employed on such a service, complied ; but respectfully remon- 
strated upon the imprudence of provoking Major Sandys. The conse- 
quences soon appeared : the Serjeant returned with a body of soldiers, who 
paraded before Mr. M'Nally's door, and were under orders to proceed to 
extremities if the cup was not delivered up. Upon Mr. M'Nally's acquaint- 
ing Lord Kilwarden with the outrage, the latter burst into tears, and ex- 
claiming, that " his own sideboard might be the next object of plunder, ti 
such atrocious practices were not checked," lost not an instant in procuring 
a restitution of the property. The cup was accordingly sent back with the 
inscription erased. *' And here," continued Mr. Curran, observing upon 
this transaction, " let me say, in my own defence, that this is the only occa- 
sion upon which I have ever mentioned it with the least appearance of 
lightness. I have often told the story in a way that it would not become me- 
to tell it here t I have tol4 it in the spirit of those feelings that were excited 
at seeing that one man could be sober and humane, at a moment when so 
tnany thousands were drunk and barbarous ; and probably my statement 
was not stinted, by the recollection that 1 held that person in peculiar re- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 267 

It would be defrauding Lord Kihvardcn of his greatest praise, 
to attribute this generous interposition to considerations of mere 
private friendship : it was only a part of that system of rare and 
manly toleration which adorned his whole public career. It is of- 
ten the fate of the most splendid characters, w^ho mingle in politi- 
cal contentions, to be misunderstood and traduced, until the turbu- 
lence of the scene is past, or until the appeasing influence of the 
grave extorts an admission of their virtues. With Lord Kilwardeii 
it was otherwise : so conspicuous were (if not his talents) his integ- 
rity and humanity, more admirable than the most exalted talents, 
that Ireland, in her most passionate moments, thought and spoke of 
him while he lived as she now does of his memory. His conduct 
in the situation of attorney-general would alone have entitled him 
to the lasting gratitude of his country. This trying and so fre- 
quently unpopular office he filled during the most agitated period 
of her history. From the year 1790 to 1798 it devolved upon him 
to conduct the state prosecutions, a task so difficult to perform with- 
out reproach ; and, to his honour it is recorded, that he did not es- 
cape reproach — the reproach of an extreme respect for human 
life. He delighted in mercy ; and though, " like the noble tree, 
that is wounded itself, while it yields the balm," the indulgence of 
his nature exposed him to censure, he was still inflexibly merciful, 
screening the deluded, mitigating, where it could be done, the pun- 
ishment of the convicted, abstaining, in the most aggravated cases, 
from embittering the agonies of the criminal by official invective, 
or by more inhuman levity. Such were the arts by which this ex- 
cellent man collected around him the applauses of the good, and 
earned for his memory that epithet which is never separated from 
an allusion to his fate — " the lamented Lord Kihvarden." 



As soon as the first interval of professional occupation permitted 
l|im, Mr. Curran seized the opportunity of passing over to England, 

spect and regard. But little does it signify whether acts of moderation and 
humanity are blazoned by gratitude, by flattery, or by friendship : they are 
recorded in the heart from which they sprung ; and, in the hour of adverse 
vicissitude, if it should ever come, sweet is the odour of their memory, and 
precious the balm of their consolation." 



268 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

and of seeking in a more tranquil scene, and in the consolations of* 
private friendship, a temporary relief from the anguish with which 
he had witnessed the spectacle of turbulence and suffering at home. 
Upon the present occasion, his feelings of personal respect, and his 
certainty of finding a generous sympathy for the calamities of their 
common country, directed his steps to the residence of the Earl of 
Moira, a nobleman for whose public and private virtues he had long 
entertained the most ardent veneration : and it would here be de- 
priving Mr. Curran's memory of one of the titles of honour, upon 
which he always set the highest value, if it were not added, that, 
from his first acquaintance with his lordship, and with his accom- 
plished mother, he continued ever after to enjoy their most perfect 
confidence and esteem. During this visit to them, he addressed to 
the latter the following little poem, in which the prevailing senti- 
ment will be found to be the despondency that oppressed his own 
mind at the unfortunate period. 



Lines addressed to Lady Charlotte Rawdon, and written on a blank leaf of 
Carolan's Irish airs. Dvnnington Park, October^ 1798. 

And she said unto her people, Lo ! he is a wanderer and in sadness ; go, 
therefore, and give him food, that he be not hungry, and wine, that he be 
comforted. And they gave him food and wine, and his heart was glad : and, 
when he was departing, he said unto her, I will give thee a book — it con- 
taineth the songs of the bards of Erin, of the bards of the days that are gone ! 
and these bards were prophets, and the griefs of the times to come were 
known unto them, and their hearts were sore troubled ; and their songs, yea, 
even their songs of joy were full of heaviness! This book will 1 give unto 
thee ; and it shall be a memorial of the favour thou showedst unto me. And 
I will pray a prayer for thee, and it shall be heard— that thy days may be 
happy ; and that, if sorrow should come unto thee, it may only be for a 
season, and that thou mayest find comfort even as I have done, so that thou 
Jnayest say, even as I have said, I did not take heed unto my words, when I 
said I was as one without hope. Surely I am not a wanderer, neither am I 
in the land of strangers ! 

By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remember 
thee,OSion! 

Carolan, thy happy love 

No jealous doubt, no pang can prove. 

Thy generous lord is kind as brave ; 

He loves the bard, and scorns the §lave t 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 269 

And Charlotte deigns to hear thy lays, 

And pays thee not with thoughtless praise. 

With flowery wreaths the cup is crown'd : 

The frolic laugh, the dance goes round 

" The hall of shells :" the merry throng 

Demand thy mirth, demand thy song. 

Here echoes wait to catch the strain, 

And sweetly give it back again. 

Then, happy bard ! awake thy fire — 

Awake the heart-string of thy lyre — - 

Invoke thy Muse. Thy Muse appears ; 

But robed in sorrow, bathed in tears. 

No blithesome tale, alas ! she tells — 

No glories of the " hall of shells"— 

No joy she whispers to thy lays — 

No note of love, no note of praise ; — 

But to thy boding fancy shows 

The forms of Erin's future woes. 

The wayward fates, that crown the slave. 

That mar the wise, that crush the brave. 

The tyrant's frown, the patriot's doom. 

The mother's tears, the warrior's tomb. 

In vain would mirth inspire thy song : 

Grief heaves thy breast, and claims thy tongue : 

Thy strain from joy to sadness turns : 

The bard would smile — the prophet mourns.* 



Mr. Curran had scarcely returned to Ireland to resume his public 
duties, when it was his fate to be engaged, while performing them, 
in another scene, which bore a striking resemblance to the melan- 
choly catastrophe in Jackson's case. The circumstances alluded 
to were those which followed the trial and conviction of Theobald 
Wolfe Tone. 

Mr. Tone was one of the most active promoters of the designs of 
the United Irishmen ; and, according to the concurring testimony 
of all his cotemporaries, was the ablest man who had given his 
support to that cause. He was originally a member of the Irish 
bar, where his talents could not have failed to have raised him to 

* These verses were written in answer to a question from Lady Rawdon, 
upon the cause of the mixture of liveliness and melancholy which distin- 
guishes the compositions of Carolan, 



270 ^I*^E OF CURRAN. 

distinction ; but the principles of the French revolution, and the 
hope of successfully applying them to change the condition of his 
own country, soon diverted his ardent mind from legal pursuits, 
and involved him in that political career which subsequently occu- 
pied his life. In this new field he, at a very early period, became 
conspicuous for his zeal in supporting the claims of the Roman 
catholics, who appointed him a secretary to their committee, and 
voted him a sum of money as the reward of his exertions. He was 
also one of the original projectors of the plan of combining the 
popular strength and sentiment, which was afterwards matured into 
the Irish Union. That association existed some years before its 
object was to effect a revolution ; but it has already been shown, 
that, as early as 1791, Mr. Tone recommended precisely the same 
views which the future leaders vainly attempted to accomplish. In 
1794, when Jackson arrived in Ireland upon his secret mission 
from the French government, he soon discovered that Mr. Tone 
was one of the persons the most likely to approve and assist his 
designs. He accordingly communicated them to him, and was not 
disappointed in his expectation. Mr. Tone so cordially embraced 
the proposal of an invasion of Ireland by the French, that, had not 
the urgency of his private affairs prevented, he would have passed 
over to France, in order to confer in person with the French 
authorities upon the subject. Some of the discussions upon this 
topic took place in the prison of Newgate, in the presence of Cock- 
ayne and Mr. Hamilton Rowan, the latter of whom was at that time 
under sentence of confinement for the publication of a libel. Jack- 
son being shortly after arrested upon the information of Cockayne, 
Mr. Rowan, who was aware that the evidence of that witness would 
equally involve himself, effected his escape, and fled to France. 
Mr. Tone remained. Whatever his more private communications 
might have been with Jackson, upon whose fidelity he relied, he 
conceived that the amount of Cockayne's testimony could convict 
him of no higher an offence than misprision of treason. Consider- 
able exertions were also used by his private friends to dissuade the 
government from a prosecution ; and, in consequence, he was not 
arrested. The evidence upon Jackson's trial, however, having 
publicly shown that some degree of treasonable connexion had 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 271 

subsisted between him and Mr. Tone, the ialter was advised, if he 
consuhed his safety, to withdraw from Ireland. He accordingly, 
in the summer of 1795, transported himself and his family to Ame- 
rica.* Here he did not remain many months. He tendered his 
services to the French Directory, and having met with all the en- 
couragement he could desire, he procured a passage to France, 
where he arrived in the beginning of the year 1796, He was most 
favourably received, and appointed to a commission in the French 
army. His efforts to persuade the Directory to send an armament 
to Ireland have been previously mentioned. The first expedition 
having failed, a second attempt was made in the autumn of 1798. 
This was equally unsuccessful ; and Mr. Tone, who was on board 
the Hoche French line of battle ship, one of the vessels captured 
by Sir J. B. Warren's squadron off the Irish coast, fell into the 
hands of the English government, and was brought to trial by 
court-martial in Dublin, on the 10th of November, 1798. 

Mr. Tone appeared in court in the dress of a French officer. 
When called on for his defence, he admitted the facts of which he 
was accused ;t but pleaded (of course ineffectually) his French 
commission. He then proceeded to read a paper which he had 
drawn up in justification of his conduct, from the conclusion of 
which it was evident that he had entertained no hope that any de- 
fence could avail him. " I have little more to say. Success is 
all in this life ; and, unfavoured of her, virtue becomes vicious in 
the ephemeral estimation of those who attach every merit to pros- 
perity. In the glorious race of patriotism, I have pursued the path 
chalked out by Washington in America, and Kosciusko in Poland*. 
Like the latter, I have failed to emancipate my country ; and, unlike 
them both, I have forfeited my life. I have done my duty, and I 
have no doubt the court will do theirs. I have only to add, that a 
man, who has thought and acted as I have done, should be armed 

* The vessel, in which he was a passenger, no sooner arrived in sight of 
an American port, than she was boarded by a boat from a British man of 
war. Mr. Tone was among others) impressed to serve as a sailor in his 
majesty's navy : but, after considerable difficulties, his own remonstrances, 
and the solicitations of Mrs. Tone, obtained his release. 

t When asked what he would plead, he exclaimed, " Guilty ; for 1 have 
never, during my life, stooped to a prevarication." 



g73 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

against the fear of death. I conceive," continued he, " that 1 stand 
here in the same light with our emigres; and, if the indulgence lay 
within the power of the court, I would only request what French 
magnanimity allowed to Charette and to the Count de Sombreuil — 
the death of a soldier, and to be shot by a file of grenadiers. This 
is the only favour I have to ask ; and I trust, that men, susceptible 
of the nice feelings of a soldier's honour, will not refuse the request. 
It is not from any personal feeling that I make this request, but 
^rom a respect to the uniform which I wear, and to the brave army 
in which I have fought." 

This final request was not granted. It was directed by the go* 
v'ernment that he should be executed in the ordinary form, and in 
the most public manner; but this the prisoner took the resolution of 
preventing, by an act, which, in his case, shows the uncertain se- 
curity of any speculative determinations respecting suicide, against 
the pressure of the actual calamity, or of the many other motives 
which impel a man to raise his hand against himself. 

Upon the evening before the Hoche sailed from Brest, the subject 
of suicide was fully discussed among the Irish, who formed a part 
of the expedition. They felt confident of success, should the French 
troops debark in safety upon the coast of Ireland ; but they were 
equally certain, that, if captured at sea, they would all be condemn- 
ed, and executed. Upon this a question arose, whether in the lat- 
ter event, they should suffer themselves to be put to death accord- 
ing to the sentence and forms of law. Mr. Tone maintained that 
ihey ought ; and, with his usual eloquence and animation, delivered 
his decided opinion, that, in no point of view in which he had ever 
considered suicide, could he hold it to be justifiable. It is sup- 
posed, that, in his own particular instance, he did not at this time an- 
ticipate an ignominious mode of death ; but that he expected, ia 
case of capture and condemnation, to be allowed the military privi- 
lege which he afterwards so earnestly claimed.* Disappointed in 

* The gentleman who has communicated the above circumstances was 
present at the conversation. Independent of the moral arguments adduced 
against suicide, it was suggested by one of the company, that from political 
considerations, it would be better not to relieve, by any act of self-murder, 
the Irish government from the discredit in which numerous executions would 
involve it— an idea which, he s^^s, Mr. Tone warmly approved. He adds, 
that when it appeared that the Hoche was likely to be captured, a boat was 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 2^3 

this hope, he now committed the act which he had so lately repro- 
bated. He was induced to do so either by a natural impulse of per- 
sonal pride, of which he had not previously contemplated the pow- 
erful influence, or (as is conjectured by those who best knew him) 
out of consideration for the army of which he was a member, and 
for whose honour, in his estimation, no sacrifice could be too great. 

Mr. Tone's execution was fixed for Monday, the 12th of Novem- 
ber. At an early hour upon that morning the sentinel who watched 
in his room having approached to awaken him, found him with his 
throat cut across, and apparently expiring. A surgeon was imme- 
diately called, who, on examining the wound, pronounced it not 
mortal, though extremely dangerous ; to which Mr. Tone faintly 
answered, " I find, then, I am but a bad anatomist." The wound 
was dressed, with the design of prolonging life till the hour of one 
o'clock, the time appointed for his execution. In the interval a 
motion was made in the court of King's Bench by Mr. Curran, on 
an affidavit of Mr. Tone's father, stating that his son had been 
brought before a bench of officers, calling itself a court-martial, and 
by them sentenced to death. " I do not pretend to say," observed 
Mr. Curran, " that Mr. Tone is not guilty of the charges of which 
he was accused ; I presume the officers were honourable men ; 
but it is stated in the affidavit, as a solemn fact, that Mr. Tone had 
no commission under his majesty, and therefore no court-martial 
could have cognizance of any crime imputed to him, while the court 
of King's Bench sat in the capacity of the great criminal court of 
the land. In times when war was raging, when man was opposed 
to man in the field, courts martial might be endured ; but every law 
authority is with me while I stand upon this sacred and immutable 
principle of the constitution — that martial law and civil law are in- 
compatible ; and that the former must cease with the existence of 
the latter. This is not the time for arguing this momentous ques- 
tion. My client must appear in this court. He is cast for death 
this day. He may be ordered for execution while I address you. 
I call on the court to support the law. I move for a habeas corpus 

despatched to her from the Biche (a snoall, fast sailing vessel, which after- 
wards escaped into Brest) in order to bring off all the Irish on board ; but 
that Mr. Tone could not be persuaded to avail himself of the opportunity. 

35 



2J4 UFE OF CURRAN. 

to be directed to the prevost-marshal of the barracks of Dublin, and 
Major Sands to bring up the body of Mr. Tone." 

Chief Justice.— " Have a writ instantly prepared." 

Mr. Curran. — ** My client may die while this writ is preparing." 

Chief Justice.— " Mr. Sheriff, proceed to the barracks, and ac- 
quaint the prevost-marshal that a writ is preparing to suspend Mr. 
Tone's execution ; and see that he be not executed*'''^ 

The court awaited, in a state of the utmost agitation, the return 
of the sheriff. 

Mr. Sheriff. — ** My lords, I have been at the barracks, in pur-^ 
suanc€ of your order. The prevost-marshal says he must obey 
Major Sands. Major Sands says he must obey Lord Cornwallis." 

Mr. Curran.—" Mr. Tone's father, my lords, returns, after serv- 
ing the habeas corpus : he says General Craig will not obey it." 

Chief Justice.- — '' Mr. Sheriff, take the body of Tone into your 
custody. Take the prevost-marshal and Major Sands into custody : 
and show the order of this court to General Craig." 

Mr. Sheriff, who was understood to have been refused admittance 
at the barracks, returns.-r-" I have been at the barracks. Mr. Tone, 
having cut his throat last night, is not in a condition to be removed. 
As to the second part of your order, I could not meet the parties." 

A French emigrant surgeon, whom General Craig had sent along 
with the sheriff, was sworn. 

Surgeon* — "I was sent to attend Mr. Tone this morning at four 
o'clock. His windpipe was divided. I took instant measures tp 
secure his life, by closing the wound. There is no knowing, for 
four days^ whether it will be mortal. His head is now kept in one 
position. A sentinel is over him^ to prevent his speaking* His re- 
moval would kill him." 

Mr. Curran applied for further surgical aid, and for the admis- 
sion of Mr. Tone's friends to him. Refused. 

Chief Justice. — " Let a rule be made for suspending the execu- 
tion of Theobald Wolfe Tone j and let it be served on the proper 
person." 

The prisoner lingered until the 19th day of November, when he 
expired, after having endured the most excruciating pain;* and 

* Mr. Tone had reached only his thirty-fourth year. His father was an 
eminent coach-maker in Dublin : he bad sixteen children (thirteen sons 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 375 

with his faie shall close the account of the part which Mr. Curran 
bore in the public transactions of this calamitous year. 

and three daug:bters) of whom only five attained the age of maturity, and 
whose fates afford a singular instance of the wanderings and calamities of a 
single family. Theobald died as before related. Matthew was executed 
the same year, in Dublin barracks, for high treason : it is said that no more 
than five persons were present at the execution. William was killed in In- 
dia, a major in Holkar's service. Arthur accompanied his brother Theo- 
bald to America ; and was subsequently, at the early age of eighteen, ap- 
pointed to the command of a frigate in the service of the Dutch republic : 
he is supposed to have perished at sea, as no account was ever after received 
of him. Mary was married to a foreign merchant, and died at St. Domingo. 
Their aged mother survives and now resides in Dublin. 

After the death of Mr. Wolfe Tone, his widow and infant children were 
protected by the French republic ; and, on the motion of J,*uQien Bonaparte, 
a pension granted for their support. 



376 I-IFE OF CURRAN. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Effects of the legislative union upon Mr. Curran's mind — Speech in Tan- 
dy's case — Speech in behalf of Hevey — Allusion in the latter to Mr. God- 
win — Mutual friendship of Mr. Curran and Mr. Godwin. 

Mr. Curran's history, during the eight remaining years of his 
forensic life, consists almost entirely of the causes of interest in 
which he was engaged. He was no longer in parliament when the 
question of the Union w^as agitated and carried. This measure, 
which he had always deprecated as ruinous and disgraceful to his 
country, completed those feelings of political despondency to which 
the scenes of the rebellion, and the uniform failure of every strug- 
gle to avert them, had been habituating his mind. With the Union, 
which he considered as " the extinction of the Irish name," all his 
long cherished hopes for Ireland vanished for ever. From this last 
shock to his affections and his pride he never recovered. It was 
ever after present to his imagination, casting a gloom over all his 
political speculations, and interfering with the repose of his private 
hours. This sensibility to what so many others bore with complacen* 
cy as a mere national disaster, will, perhaps, be ridiculed as affected, 
or doubted as incredible ; but those who best knew him can attest 
the sincerity and the extent of his affliction. It was so deep, that 
I he began seriously to meditate a final departure from Ireland,* At 
^ ane time he looked towards America, at another to the English 
bar ; but the better influence of duties and old attachments pre- 
. vailed over these suggestions of melancholy, and he remained te 
i conclude his fortunes on the scene where they had commenced, 

* "That country (as he observes in one of his latest speeches at the bar) 
of which 1 have so often abandoned all hope, and which I have been so ofteis 
determined to quit for ever — 

Saepe vale dicto, multa sum deinde locutus, 

Et quasi discedens oscula summa dabam, 

Indulgens animo, pes tardus erat." 

Speech in Judge Johnson's Casen. 



UFE OF CURRAN. 277 

CASE OF JAMES NAPPER TANDY. 

One of Mr. Curran's speeches, which has been omitted in all the 
editions of the published collection, was that in behalf of Mr. 
James Napper Tandy. Mr. Tandy had been a conspicuous mem- 
ber of the early societies of United Irishmen. In 1795 he was in- 
dicted for high treason, and fled to the continent, where he became 
an officer in the French service. He was one of the persons ex- 
cluded from the benefit of the bill of general amnesty, which was 
passed after the suppression of the rebellion of 1798. The other 
particulars of his case may be sufficiently collected from Mr. Cur- 
ran's statement. The trial took place in the King's Bench, before 
Lord Kilwarden and the other judges of that court, on the 19th of 
May, 1800. ♦ 

Mr. Curran (for the prisoner). " My lords, and you, gentlemen 
of the jury, I am in this case of counsel for Mr. Tandy, the prison- 
er at the bar. I could have wished it had been the pleasure of the 
gentlemen who conduct this business on the part of the crown, to 
have gone on first : the subject itself is of a very novel nature in 
this country ; but certainly it is the right of the crown, and which 
the gentlemen have thought proper to follow, to call on the counsel 
for the prisoner to begin ; and therefore it is my duty, my lords, to 
submit to you, and to explain, under the direction of the court, 
to you, gentlemen of the jury, what the nature of the question is 
that you are sworn to try. 

" An act of parliament was passed in this country, which began 
to be a law on the 6th of October, 1798 ; on that day it received 
the royal assent. By that law it is stated, that the prisoner at the 
bar had been guilty of acts of treason of many different kinds : 
and it enacted, that he should stand attainted of high treason, ex- 
cept he should, on or before the first day of December following, 
surrender himself to one of the judges of this court, or to one of 
his majesty's justices of the peace, for the purpose of becoming 
amenable to that law, from which he was supposed to have fled, in 
order to abide his trial for any crime that might be alleged agains4: 
him. 



278 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

" It was a law not passed for the purpose of absolutely pro- 
nouncing any judgment whatsoever against him, but for the pur- 
pose of compelling him to come in and take his trial : and nothing 
can show more strongly that that act of parliament has not estab- 
lished any thing touching the fact of the prisoner's guilt ; because 
it would be absurd, in one and the same breath, to pronounce that 
he was guilty of high treason, and then call upon him to come in 
and abide his trial : and the title of the act speaks that it is an act 
not pronouncing sentence against the prisoner, but that it is an act 
in order to compel him to come forward. 

" This act creates a parliamentary attainder, not founded on the 
establishaient of the prisoner's guilt of treason, but on his contu- 
macious avoidance of trial, by standing out against a trial by law. 
I make this observation to you, gentlemen of the jury, in order that 
you may, in the first instance, discharge from your minds any actu- 
al belief of any criminality in the prisoner at the bar, and that for 
two reasons ; first, because a well-founded conviction of his guilt, 
on the authority of this statute, might have some impression 
on the minds of men sitting in judgment on the prisoner ; but 
for a more material reason I wish to put it from your minds, be- 
cause his guilt or innocence has nothing to do with the issue you 
are sworn to try. 

" Gentlemen, the issue you are called to try is not the guilt or the 
innocence of the prisoner; it is therefore necessary you should 
understand exactly what it is. The prisoner was called on to 
show cause why he should not suffer death, pursuant to the enacting 
clause of the statute ; and he has put in a plea, in which he states, 
that before the time for surrender had expired, namely, on the 24th 
of November, 1 798, seven days before the day that he had for sur- 
rendering had expired, he was, by the order of his majesty, arrest- 
ed, and made a prisoner in the town of Hamburgh 5 and that in 
consequence of such arrest, it became impossible for him to sur- 
render himself and beQome amenable to justice within the time 
prescribed : and the counsel for the crown have rested the case on 
the denial, in point of fact, of this allegation ; and, therefore, the 
question that you are to try is simplified to this—'. I was arrested,' 
says the prisoner, ' whereby it became impossible for me to sur- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 279 

render' — to which the counsel for the crown reply, ' You have not 
been arrested at the time alleged by you, whereby it became im- 
possible for you to surrender. This I conceive to be the issue, in 
point of fact, joined between the parties, and on which it is ray du- 
ty to explain the evidence that will be offered. 

" Mr. Tandy is a subject of this country, and had never been in 
it from the time this act of parliament passed, until he was brou ^^ht 
into it after his arrest on the 24th of November, 1798 : on that day 
he was in the town of Hamburgh. He had seven days, in which 
time it was practicable for him to arrive in this country, and sur- 
render himself, according to the requisitions of the act of attainder. 
Every thing that could be of value to man was at stake, and called 
on him to make that surrender. If he did not surrender, his life 
was forfeited — if he did not surrender, his fortune was confiscated — 
if he did not surrender, the blood of his family was corrupted ; and 
he could leave them no inheritance, but the disgrace of having suf- 
fered as a traitor. 

" Your common sense, gentlemen, will show you, that where a 
man is to forfeit his life unless he complies with the conditions of 
an act of parliament — your common sense, your common humanity 
must show you, that a man ought to be suffered to perform the con- 
ditions on which his life depends. It can require no argument to 
impress upon your mind, that to call on a man to surrender himself 
on pain of death, and by force to prevent him from surrendering, 
goes to an atrocity of oppression that no human mind can contem- 
plate without horror. 

" But it seems that the prisoner at the bar was a man of too much 
consequence to the repose of all civilized nations ; to the great 
moral system, I might almost say, to the great physical system of 
the universe, to be permitted to act in compliance with the statute 
that called upon him to surrender himself upon pain of death. The 
wisdom of the entire continent was called upon to exercise its me- 
diation on this most momentous circumstance — the diplomatic wis- 
dom of Germany was all put into action on the subject — the en- 
lightened humanity of the north was called on to lend its aid. Gen- 
tlemen, you know as well as I the princely virtues, and the imperial 
qualifications, the consummate wisdom and sagacity of our stedfast 



280 ^I^E OF CURRAN. 

friend and ally, the emperor of all the Russias ; you must feel the 
awe with which he ought to be mentioned : his sacred person has 
become embodied in the criminal law of England, and it has be- 
come almost a misprision to deem of him or speak of him but with 
reverence. I feel that reverence for him ; and I deem of him and 
conceive him to be a constellation of all virtue — compared with 
whose radiance the Ursamajor twinkles only as the glow-worm. 
And, gentlemen, what was the result of the exercise of this combina- 
tion of wisdom f That James Napper Tandy ought not to be got 
rid of in the ordinary way. They felt an honest and a proper in- 
dignation, that a little community like Hamburgh should embezzle 
thai carcase which was the property of a mild and merciful govern- 
ment : they felt a proper indignation that the senate of Hamburgh, 
under the present sublime system, should defraud the mercy of the 
government of the blood of the prisoner, or cheat the gibbet of his 
bones, or deprive the good and loyal ravens of this country of his 
flesh — and accordingly by an order issued to these miserable in- 
habitants of the town of Hamburgh, who were made to feel that 
common honesty and common humanity can only be sustained by a 
strength not to be resisted ; they were obliged to break the ties of 
justice and hospitality — to trample on the privileges that every 
stranger claims ; they were obliged to suffer the prisoner to be 
trampled on, and meanly, and cruelly, and pitiably to give up this 
unfortunate man to the disposal of those who could demand him at 
such a price. 

" If a surrender, in fact, had been necessary on the part of the 
prisoner, certainly a very material object was achieved by arrest- 
ing him: because they thereby made it impossible for him to avail 
himself of the opportunity. They made it impossible for him to 
avail himself of the surrender, if the reflection of his mind led hira 
to it. If a sense of the duty he owed his family led him to a wish, 
or to an intention, of availing himself of the remaining time he had 
to surrender, they were determined he should not take advantage 
of it. He had been guilty of what the law deems a crime, that is, 
of flying from justice, though it does not go to the extent of working 
a. corruption of blood: but by this act of power — by this act of 
tyrannic force, he was prevented from doing that which every court 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 281 

jf justice must intend he was willing to do: which the law intends 
he would havadoae — which the law gave him time to do — which 
the law supposes he might have done the last hour, as well as the 
first. He was on his passage to this countiy ; that would not have 
taken up a third part of the time that had now elapsed — but by 
seizing on him in the manner he was arrested, it became impossible 
for him to surrender himself, or become amenable to justice. But, 
gentlemen, the^^'prisoner, when he was arrested, was treated in a 
manner that made it impossible for him to do any act that might 
have been considered as tantamount to a surrender. He was con- 
fined in a dungeon, little larger than a grave — he was loaded with 
•* irons — he was chained by an iron that communicated from his arm 
to his leg ; and that so short, as to grind into his flesh. In such a 
state of restriction did he remain for fifteen days ; in such a situa- 
tion did he lie in a common vault ; food was cut into shapeless 
lumps, and flung to him by iii« filthy attendants as he lay on the 
ground, as if he had been a beast: he had no bed to lie on; not 
even straw to coil himself up in, if he could hav« slept. In that 
situation he remained in a foreign country for fifteen days of his 
long imprisonment ; and he is now called to show good cause why 
he should not suffer death, because he did not surrender himself 
and become amenable to the law. He was debarred all communi- 
cation whatsoever : if he attempted to speak to the sentinels that 
guarded him, they could not understand him : he did make such 
kind of indications of his misery and his sufferings as could be 
conveyed by signs, but he made them in vain ; and he is now 
called on to show good cause wherefore he did contumaciously and 
traitorously refuse to surrender himself, and become amenable to 
the law. 

" Gentlemen of the jury, I am stating facts that happened in a 
foreign country ; will you expect that I should produce witnesses 
to lay those abominable offences before you in evidence ? It was 
nol in the power of the prisoner at the bar to procure witnesses ; he 
was not of importance enough to call on the armed civilization of 
Europe, or on the armed barbarity of Europe, to compel the in- 
habitants of the town where he was imprisoned to attend at the bar 
of this court to give evidence for the preservation of his life; but 

36 



282 LIFE OF CURRAN, 

though such interposal could not be obtained to preserve his life, 
it could be procured for the purposes of blood. And this is one 
reason why the rights of neutral states should be respected ; be- 
cause, if an individual, claiming those privileges, be torn from that 
sanctuary, he comes without the benefit of the testimony of those 
that could save his life. It is a maxim of law, that no man shall 
lose any thing, much less his life, by the non-performance of a con- 
dition, if that non-performance had arisen by the act of God, or of 
the party who is to avail himself of the condition ; that the impos- 
sibility so imposed shall be an excuse for the nonperformance of 
the condition : that is the defence the prisoner relies upon here. 

* Why did you not surrender, and become amenable to justice? 
Because I was in chains.' — ' Why did you not come over to Ireland ? 
Because I was a prisoner in a grave in the town of Hamburgh.' — 

* Why did you not do something tantamount to a surrender.'* Be- 
' cause I was unpractised in the language of the strangers, who could 

not be my protectors, because they were also my fellow-sufferers.' 
But he may push this reasoning much farther ; the statute was made 
for the express purpose of making him amenable. When the crown 
seized him at Hamburgh, it thereby made him amenable, and so 
satisfied the law. It could not seize him for execution as an at- 
tainted person, for the time had not arrived at which the attainder 
could attach. The king, therefore, seized him as a man liable to 
be tried, and yet he calls upon him to suffer death, because he did 
not make himself amenable by voluntary surrender ; that is, because 
he did not do that which the king was pleased to do for him, by a 
seizure which made it at once unnecessary and impossible for hira 
to do by any voluntary act. Such is the barbarity and folly that 
must ever arise, when force and power assume the functions of 
reason and justice. As to his intention after the arrest, it is clearly 
out of the question. The idea of intention is not applicable to an 
impossible act. To give existence to intention, the act must be 
possible, and the agent must be free. Gentlemen, this, and this 
only, is the subject on which you are to give a verdict. I do think 
it is highly honourable to the gentleman who has come over to this 
country, to give the prisoner at the bar the benefit of his evidence ; 
no process could have compelled him: the inhabitants of foreign 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 283 

countries are beyond the reach of process to bring witnesses to 
give evidence. But we have a witness, and that of the highest 
respectability, who was himself at Hamburgh at the time Mr. Tandy 
was arrested, in an official situation. We will call Sir James Craw- 
ford, who was then the king's representative in the town of Ham- 
burgh. We will show you, by his evidence, the facts that I have 
stated ; that before the time allowed to the prisoner to surrender 
had elapsed, Sir James Crawford did, in his official situation, and 
by orders from his own government, cause the person of Mr. Tandy 
to be arrested in Hamburgh. Far am I from suspecting, or insinu- 
ating against Sir James Crawford, that any of the cruelties that 
were practised on that abused and helpless community, or on my 
abused client, were committed at his instance or personal sanction; 
certain am I that no such fact could be possible. 

" I told you before, gentlemen, that the principal question you 
had to try was, the fact on which the parties had joined issue ; the 
force and arrest alleged by the prisoner ; and the denial of that 
force by the counsel for the crown. There is one consideration, 
that I think necessary to give some attention to. What you may 
think of the probable guilt or innocence of the prisoner, is not with- 
in the question that you are to decide ; but if you should have any 
opinion of that sort, the verdict given in favour of the prisoner can 
be no preclusion to public justice, if after your verdict they still 
call for his life ; the utmost that can follow from a verdict in his fa- 
vour will be, that he will be considered as a person who has sur- 
rendered to justice, and must abide his trial for any crime that may 
be charged against him. There are various ways of getting rid of 
him, if it is necessary to the repose of the world that he should 
die. I have said, if he has committed any crime, he is amena- 
ble to justice, and in the hands of the law : he may be proceed- 
ed against before a jury, or he may be proceeded against in 
another and more summary manner; it may so happen that you 
may not be called upon to dispose finally of his life or of his char- 
acter. WTiatever verdict a jury can pronounce upon him can be 
of no final avail. There was, indeed, a time when a jury was the 
shield of liberty and life : there was a time, when I never rose tQ 
address it without a certain sentiment of confidence and pride ; but 
that time is past, I have no heart now to make any appeal tp 



2g4 ' LIFE OF CURRAN. 

your indignation, your justice, or your humanity. I sink under the 
consciousness that you are nothing. With us, the trial by jury 
has given place to shorter, and, no doubt, better modes of dispo- 
sing of life. Even in the sister nation, a verdict can merely pre- 
vent the duty of the hang-man ; but it never can purge the stain 
which the first malignity of accosation^ however falsified by proof, 
stamps indelibly on the character of an * acquitted felon.' To 
speak proudly of it to you would be a cruel mockery of your con- 
dition ; but let me be at least a supplicant with you for its memo- 
ry. Do not, I beseech you, by a vile instrumentality, cast any dis- 
grace upon its memory. 1 know you are called out to day to fill 
up the ceremonial of a gaudy pageant, and that to-morrow you will 
be flung back again among the unused and useless lumber of the 
constitution : but, trust me, the good old trial l»y jury will come 
round again ; trust me, gentlemen, in ihe revolutiou of the great 
wheel of human affairs, though it is now at the bottom, it will re- 
ascend to the station it has lost, and once more assume its former 
dignity and respect ; trust me, that mankind will become tired of 
resisting the spirit of innovation, by subverting every ancient and 
established principle, and by trampling upon every right of indi- 
viduals and of nations. Man, destined to the grave — nothing that 
appertains to him is exempt from the stroke of death — his life fleeth 
as a dream, his liberty passeth as a shadow. So, too, of his sla- 
very-— it is not immortal ; the chain that grinds him is gnawed by 
rust, or it is rent by fury or by accident, and the wretch is astonish- 
ed at the intrusions of freedom^ unannounced even hy the harbinger 
'f)f ho^e * Let me therefore conjure you, by the memory of the past, 

* There is a passage in Dante descriptive of the same state of amazement 
produced by an unexpected escape from danger. 

E come quei che con lena affanata, 

Uscito del jpelago alia riva, 

Si Yolge air acqua perigliosa, e guata, 

(And, as a man with difficult short breath, 
Forespent with toiling, 'scaped from sea to shore. 
Turns to the perilous wide waste, and stands 

At gaze.) 

Cary^s Translation. 

A distinguished Italian writer, now in England, commenting upon this 
passage in a late numberof a periodical work, observes, nearly in the words 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 285 

and th€ hope of the future, to respect the fallen condition of the good 
old trial by jury, and cast no infamy upon it. If it is necessary to the 
repose of the world that the prisoner should die, there are many 
ways of killing him — we know there are ; it is not necessary that 
you should be stained with his blood. The strange and still more 
unheard of proceedings against the prisoner at the bar, have made 
the business of this day a subject of more attention to all Europe 
than is generally excited by the fate or the suffering of any individ- 
ual. Let me, therefore, advise you seriously to reflect upon your ] 
situation, before you give a verdict of meanness and of blood that 
must stamp the character of folly and barbarity upon this already 
disgraced and degraded country."*' 



The next of Mr. Curran's professional efforts which shall be no- 
ticed was that in behalf of Mr. John Hevey, who brought an action 
for false imprisonment against Charles Henry Sirr, town-major of 
Dublin.! This, though a private case, was intimately connected 
with the public events in which the preceding state trials origina- 
ted. It also resembles them in the examples of suffering and de- 
pravity which it exhibits. It presents a picture of a race of beings^ 
the greatest scourge of an agitated country — apolitical middle-men, 
who, conscious that the restoration of tranqisillity must throw them 
out of employment and plunder, feel an interest in aggravating the 
public disorders by every art of violence and persecution, which, 
under the pretext of proving their zeal, can prolong the necessity 
of their office. Of this office and its detestable abuses, a tolerable 
idea may be formed from a sketch of Mr. Curran's statement. 

" It was at that sad crisis (1798) that the defendant, from an ob- 
scure individual, started into notice and consequence. It is the 

of Mr. Curran, " The concluding verse places the man in that state of stu- 
por which is felt upon passing at once to safety from despair, without the 
intervention of hope : he looks back upon perdition witli a stare, uncon- 
scious how he had escaped it.'^ 

* The jury found a verdict for the prisoner. He was afterwards permit- 
ted to retire to the continent, where he ended his days. 

t May, 1802. 



ggg LIFE or CURRAN. 

hot-bed of public calamity that such inauspicious products are ac- 
cellerated without being matured. From being a town major, a 
name scarcely legible in the list of public incumbrances, he be- 
came at once invested with all the real powers of the most absolute 
authority. 

" With this gentleman's extraordinary elevation began the story 
of the sufferings and ruin of the plaintiff. A man was prosecuted 
by the state ; Hevey, who was accidentally present at the trial, 
knowing the witness for the prosecution to be a person of infamous 
character, mentioned the circumstance in court. He was sworn, 
and on his evidence the prisoner was acquitted. In ai day or two 
after Major Sirr met the plaintiff in the street, asked how he dared 
to interfere in his business f and swore, by God, he would teach 
him how to meddle with * his people.' On the following evening 
poor Hevey was dogged in the dark into some lonely alley — there 
he was seized, he knew not by whom, nor by what authority — his 
crime he soon learned, it was the treason he had committed against 
(he majesty of Major Sirr. He was immediately conducted to a 
new place of imprisonment in the castle yard, called the provost. 
Of this mansion of misery Major Sandys was the keeper, a gentle- 
man of whom I know how dangerous it is to speak, and of whom 
every prudent person will think and talk with all due reverence. 
Here Hevey lay about seven weeks ; he was at last discovered 
among the sweepings of the prison. ' Hevey' (said the major) ' I 
have seen you ride, I think, a smart sort of a mare — you can't use 
her here — you had better give me an order for her. Hevey, in- 
duced by hope and by fear, gave the order. The major accepted 
the order, saying, ' your courtesy will not cost you much — you are 
to be sent down to-morrow to Kilkenny, to be tried for your life— 
you will most certainly be hanged— and you can scarcely think 
that your journey to the other world will be performed on horse- 
back.' Hevey was accordingly transmitted to Kilkenny, tried by a 
court-martial, and convicted upon the evidence of a person under 
sentence of death, who had been allured by a proclamation, offer- 
ing a reward to any man who would come forward and give any 
evidence against the traitor Hevey. Lord Cornwallis read the 
transmiss of Hevey's condemnation — his heart recoiled from the 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 287 

Jetail of stupidity and barbarity. He dashed his pen across the 
odious record, and ordered that Hevey should be forthwith liber- 
ated. On his return to Dublin the plaintiff met Major Sandys, and 
demanded his mare ; — ' Ungrateful villain,' (says the major) ' is 
this the gratitude you show to his majesty and to me, for our clem- 
ency to you—you shan't get possession of the beast,' Hevey 
brought an action for the mare ; the major, not choosing to come 
into court and suggest the probable success of a thousand actions, 
restored the property, 

" Three years," continued Mr, Curran, " had elapsed since the 
deliverance of my client — the public atmosphere had cleared — the 
private destiny of Hevey seemed to have brightened, but the malice 
of his enemies had not been appeased. On the 8lh of last Sep- 
tember, Mr. Hevey was sitting in a public coffee-house — Major 
Sirr was there — Mr, Hevey was informed that Major Sirr had at 
that moment said, that he (Hevey) ought to have been hanged. 
The plaintiff was fired at the charge ; he fixed his eye on Sirr, and 
asked if he had dared to say so ? Sirr declared that he had, and had 
said truly, Hevey answered, that he was a slanderous scoundrel. 
At the instant Sirr rushed upon him, and, assisted by three or four 
of his satellites, who had attended him in disguise, secured him and 
sent him to the castle guard, desiring that a receipt might be given 
for the villain. He was sent thither. The officer of the guard 
chanced to be an Englishman, but lately arrived in Ireland — he 
said to the bailiffs, ' if this was in England, I should think this gen- 
tleman intilled to bail, but I don't know the laws of this country — 
however I think you had better loosen those irons on his wrists, or 
they may kill him.' 

" Major Sirr, the defendant, soon arrived, went into his office, 
and returned with an order which he had written, and by virtue of 
which Mr. Hevey was conveyed to the custody of his old friend 
and gaoler, Major Sandys. Here he was flung into a room of 
about thirteen feet by twelve; it was called the hospital of the 
provost ; it was occupied by six beds, in which were to lie fourteen 
or fifteen miserable wretches, some of them sinking under conta- 
gious disorders. Here he passed the first night without bed or food. 
The next moirning his humane keeper, the major, appeared. The 



288 LIf'E OF CURRAN. 

plaintiff demanded why he was so imprisoned, complained of hun- 
ger, and asked for the gaol allowance ? Major Sandys replied with 
a torrent of abuse, which he concluded by saying — ' your crime is 
your insolence to Major Sirr ; however, he disdains to trample on 
you — you may appease him by proper and contrite submission ; 
but unless you do so, you shall rot where you are. J tell you this, 
that if government will not protect us, by God, we will not protect 
them. You will probably (for I know your insolent and ungrate- 
ful hardiness) attempt to get out by an habeas corpus, but in that 
3 ou will find yourself mistaken, as such a rascal deserves.' Hevey 
v/Qs insolent enough to issue an habeas corpus, and a return was 
made on it, ^ that Hevey was in custody under a warrant from 
General Craig, on a charge of treason. That this return was a 
gross falsehood, fabricated by Sirr, I am instructed to assert. The 
judge, before whom this return was brought, felt that he had no 
authority to liberate the unhappy prisoner ; and thus, by a most 
inhuman and malicious lie, my client was again remanded to the 
horrid mansion of pestilence and famine. Upon this Mr. Hevey, 
fading that nothing else remained, signed a submission dictated 
hy Sandys, was enlarged from confinement, and brought the pres« 
ent action.'' 

The foregoing is a very curtailed sketch of the particulars of 
this case ; those who partake of the prevailing taste for strong 
emotions are referred to the entire report, where they will find in 
every line abundant sources of additional excitement. 

Of the style in which the advocate commented upon these ex- 
traordinary facts, the following is among the most striking examples* 

Adverting to the ignorance in which England was kept regard- 
ing the sufferings of Ireland, and to the benefit to be derived from 
sending her one authenticated example, Mr.Currangoes on — " I can- 
not also but observe to you, that the real state of one country is more 
forcibly impressed on the attention of anodier by a verdict on such 
a subject as this, than it could be by any general description. 
When you endeavour to convey an idea of a great number of bar- 
barians practising a great variety of cruelties upon an incalculable 
multitude of sufferers, nothing defined or specific finds its way to 
the heart 5 nor is any sentiment excited, save that of a general, er- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 289 

ratic, unappropriated commiseration. If, for instance, you wished 
to convey to the mind of an English matron the horrors of that dire- 
ful period, when, in defiance of the remonstrance of the ever to be 
lamented Abercromby, our poor people were surrendered to the li- 
centious brutality of the soldiery, by the authority of the state — 
you would vainly endeavour to give her a general picture of lust, 
and rapine, and murder, and conflagration. By endeavouring to 
comprehend every thing, you would convey nothing. When the fa- 
ther of poetry wishes to pourtray the movements of contending ar- 
mies and an embattled field, he exemplifies only, he does not (\e^ 
scribe — he does not venture to describe the perplexed and promis- 
cuous conflicts of adverse hosts, but by the acts and fates of a 
few individuals he conveys a notion of the vicissitudes of the fight 
and :he fortunes of the day. So should your story to her keep 
clear of generalities; instead of exhibiting the picture of an entire 
province, select a single object, and even in that single object do 
not release the imagination of your hearer from its task, by giving 
more than an outline. Take a cottage — place the affrighted mother 
of her orphan daughters at the door, the paleness of death in her 
face, and more than its agonies in her heart — her aching heart, her 
anxious ear struggling through the mist of closing day to catch the ap- 
proaches of desolation and dishonour. The ruffian gang arrives — 
the feast of plunder begins — the cup of madness kindles in its cir- 
culation — the wandering glances of the ravisher become concen- 
trated upon the shrinking and devoted victim : you need not dilate — 
you need not expatiate — the unpolluted mother, to whom you tell 
the story of horror, beseeches you not to proceed ; she presses her 
child to her heart — she drowns it in her tears — her fancy catches 
more than an' angePs tongue could describe ; at a single view she 
takes in the whole miserable succession of force, of profanation, of 
despair, of death. So it is in the question before us. If any man 
shall hear of this day's transaction, he cannot be so foolish as to 
suppose that we have been confined to a single character like those 
now brought before you. No, gentlemen, far from it — he will have 
too much common sense not to know, that outrages like this are 
never solitary ; that where the public calamity generates imps like 

37 



g90 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

these, their number is as the sands of the sea, and their fury as in- 
satiable as its waves." 

The jury awarded Mr. Hevey 150/. damages: out of Ireland 
this verdict excited some surprise and indignation, feelings which 
sufficiently coroborate Mr. Curran's assertion, that the internal con- 
dition of his country was but little known in the sister kingdom. 
A story of such complicated sufferings and indignities would have 
found a far different reception from an English jury — but the plain- 
tiff in this action was a person to whom, in Ireland, it would have 
been deemed disloyal to have granted a just remuneration. Hevey 
was suspected of disaffection in 1 798, and the men, who were thus 
regardless of his appeal to their sympathy, were avenging the po- 
pular excesses of that year. 

In the course of Mr. Curran's observations upon the persecution 
of his client in this case, he took an occasion of introducing a happy 
^nd well-merited compliment to a friend and a man of genius. 
*' No country" (said he) " governed by any settled laws, or treat- 
ed with common humanity, could furnish any occurrences of such 
unparalleled atrocity ; and if the author of Caleb Williams, or of 
%e simple Story, were to read the tale of this man's sufferings, it 
might, I think humble the vanity of their talents (if they are not too 
proud to be vain) when they saw how much more fruitful a source 
of incident could be found in the infernal workings of the heart of 
a malignant slave, than in the richest copiousness of the most fertile 
and creative imagination." 

Among his English friends, the author of Caleb Williams was 
the one to whom Mr. Curran, during the last twenty years of his 
life, was the most attached, and in whose society he most delight- 
ed. However he may have dissented from some of Mr. Godwin's 
speculative opinions, he always considered him as a man of the 
most decidedly original genius of his time, and uniformly discoun- 
tenanced the vulgar clamour with which it was the fashion to assail 
him. There are many who well remember his fervour and elo- 
quence upon this topic, the tears which he so frequently excited 
by his glowing descriptions of the private excellencies of his friend^ 
and of the manly, philosiphic.equanimity by which he triumphed over 
every accident of fortune. Mr. Curran's affection and respect were 



LIFE OF CURRAN. g9j 

not unreturned — Mr. Godwin attended him in his last illness, 
watched over him till he expired, accompanied him to his grave, 
and has since his death omitted no occasion, in public or private, of 
honouring his memory.* 

* His last work, Mandeville, is dedicated to the memory of Mr. Curran 
*' the sincerest friend he ever had," a tribute of generous and disinterested 
regard, of which the motives are above all suspicion. 



393 LIFE OF CURRA]<r. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Mr. Curran visits Paris — Letter to his son — Insurrection of 1803— Defence 
of Kirwan — Death of Lord Kilwarden — Intimacy of Mr. Robert Emmet 
in Mr. Curran's family, and its consequences — Letter from Mr. Emmet to 
Mr. Curran — Letter from the same to Mr. Richard Curran. 

This year (1802) Mr. Curran, taking advantage of the short 
peace, revisited France. His journey thither now was undertaken 
with views and anticipations very different from those which had 
formerly attracted his steps towards that country. He had this 
time little hope of any gratification ; he went from an impulse of 
melancholy curiosity, to witness the extent of his own disappoint- 
ments, and to ascertain in person whether any thing worth saving, 
in morals and institutions, had escaped the general wreck ; for he 
was among those whose general attachment to freedom had indu- 
ced them to hail with joy the first prospects which the revolution 
seemed to open upon France. His own early admiration of the 
literary and social genius of her people had made him watch, with 
the liveliest interest, the progress of their struggles, until they as- 
sumed a character v*^hich no honourable mind could contemplate 
without anguish and horror. 

To Mr. Curran, too, every painful reflection upon the destiny of 
France was embittered from its connexion with a subject so much 
nearer to his heart, the fate of Ireland : for to whatever cause the 
late rebellion might be attributed, whether to an untimely and in- 
temperate spirit of innovation in the people, or to an equally vio- 
lent spirit of coercion in the state, it was in the influence of the 
French revolution that the origin of both might be found. 

It will be seen, from some passages in the following letter to one 
of his sons, that he found little in France under its consular govern- 
ment to diminish his regrets or justify a return to hope. 

" Paris, October 5, 1802. 

*' DEAR RICHARD, 

" Here I am, after having lingered six or seven days 
very unnecessarily in London. I don't know that even the few 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 293 

days that I can spend here will not be enough ; sickness long and 
glooiTiy ; convalescence disturbed by various paroxysms ; re- 
lapse confirmed ; the last a spectacle soon seen and painfully dwelt 
upon. I shall stay here yet a few days. There are some to whom 
I have introductions that I have not seen, I don't suppose I shall 
get myself presented to the consul. Not having been privately 
baptized at St. James's would be a difficulty ; to get over it a fa- 
vour ; and then the trouble of getting one's self costumed for the 
show ; and then the small value of being driven, like the beasts of the; 
field before Adam when he named them ; I think I sha'n't mind it. The; 
character of this place is wonderfully different from that of London. 
I think 1 can say without affectation, that 1 miss the frivolous ele- 
gance of the old times before the revolution, and that in the place 
of it 1 see a squalid, beard-grown, vulgar vivacity ; but still it is vi- 
vacity, infinitely preferable to the frozen and awkward sulk that I 
have left. Here they Certainly wish to be happy, and think that 
by being merry they are so. I dined yesterday with Mr. Fox, 
and went in the evening to Tivoli, a great planted, illuminated gar- 
den, where all the bourgeoisie of Paris, and some of a better de- 
scription, went to see a balloon go up. The aeronaut was to have 
ascended with a smart girl, his bonne amie ; for some reason that I 
know not, some one else went up in her place ; she was extremely 
mortified ; the balloon rose, diminished, vanished into night ; no one 
could guess what might be its fate, and the poor dear one danced 
the whole evening to shake off her melancholy. 

" I am glad I have come here. I entertained many ideas of it, 
which I have entirely given up, or very much indeed altered. Nev- 
er was there a scQne that could furnish more to the weeping or the 
grinning philosopher; they well might agree that human affairs were 
a sad joke*, I see it every where, and in every thing. The wheel 

* This idea occurs ag-aio in a speech, delivered by Mr. Curran two years 
subsequent to the date of the above letter. " I find, my lords, I have unde- 
signedly raised a laugh. Never did I less feel nrierriment — let roe not be 
condemned let not the laug:h be mistaken. Never was Mr. Hume more 
just than wfien he says, ' that in many thin«cs the extremes are nearer to one 
another than the means.' Few are those events, thai are produced by vice 
and folly, which fire the he-^rt with indignation, th.it do not also shake the 
sides with ISiughter, So when the two famous moralists of old beheld the 



294 LI^'^ ^^ CURRAN. 

has run a complete round ; only changed some spokes and a few 
* fellows,' very little for the better, but the axle certainly has not 
rusted ; nor do I see any likelihood of its rusting. At present all 
is quiet except th-e tongue, thanks to those invaluable protectors of 
peace, the army ! ! At Tivoli last night we had at least an hun- 
dred soldiers, with fixed bayonets. The consul now lives at St. 
Cloud, in a magnificence, solitary, but still fitting his marvellous 
fortune. He is very rarely seen — he travels by night — is inde- 
fatigable — has no favourite, &;c. 

" As to the little affairs at the Priory,* I can scarcely conde* 
^cend, after a walk in the Louvre, amid the spirit of those arts 
which were inspired by freedom, and have been transmitted td 
power, to think of so poor a subject. I hope to get a letter fron^ 
you in London, at Osborne's, Adelphi. Many of the Irish are 
here— ^not of consequence, to be in danger : I have merely heard 
of them. Yesterday I met Arthur O'Connor in the street, with 
Lord and Lady Oxford. Her ladyship very kindly pressed me to 
dine : but I was engaged. I had bargained for a cabriolet, to go 
and see my poor gossip* Set out at two : at the end of five miles 
found I was totally misdirected — returned to St. Denys — got a 
miserable dinner, arid was fleeced as usual. I had some vengeance 
of the rascal, however, by deploring the misery of a country where 
a stranger had nothing for his dinner but a bill. You feel a mistake 
in chronology in the two " yesterdays ;" but, in fact, part of this 
was written yesterday, and the fattep part now. I need not desire 
you to bid any one remember me -, but tell them I remember them* 
Say how Eliza does. Tell Amelia and Sarah I do not forget them 
God bless you aU* 

"J. P. C," 



sad spectacle of life, the one burst into laug-hter, and the other melted int© 
tears ; they weife each of them right and equally right. 

Si credas utrique 
Res stint humanse fiebile ludibrium. 

But these are the bitter ireful laughs of honest indignation, or they are the 
laughs of hectic melancholy and despair.*'-^»S/>eec/i in behalf of Mr, Justice, 
Johnson. 

* Mr. Curran's country seat in the vicinity of Dublin. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 295 

A more detailed and elaborate exposition of Mr. Curran's opin- 
ions upon the condition of France at this period, and upon the 
merits of its ruler's system, is contained in a speech which he 
made the following year in defence of Owen Kirwan, one of the 
persons engaged in the insurrection of the 23d of July, 1803. He 
undertook the office of counsel for some of these deluded insure 
gents, not in the expectation that any aid of his could save them, 
but because it afforded him an opportunity of warning his country* 
men against a recurrence to such fatal enterprises, by publicly 
protesting against their folly and criminality, and by exposing the 
fatuity of those who imagined that a revolution, achieved by 
the assistance of France, could have any other effect than that of 
subjecting Ireland to the merciless controul of that power* His 
opinions and advice upon this subject he gave at considerable 
length in the speech alluded to, which, independent of any other 
claims to praise, remains an honourable testimony of his prompt- 
ness in opposing the passions of the people, where he did not con- 
ceive that they were the necessary result of more reprehensible 
passions in a higher quarter. He has hitherto been seen almost 
uniformly exclaiming against the latter as the principal causes of 
his country's disasters ; it is therefore due to him, and to the gov- 
ernment of 1803, to give an example of the different language that 
he used where he considered it deserved. 

" I cannot but confess that I feel no small consolation when I 
compare my present with my former situation upon similar occa- 
sions. In those sad times to which I allude, it was frequently my 
fate to come forward to the spot where I now stand, with a body 
sinking under infirmity and disease, and a mind broken with the 
consciousness of public calamity, created and exasperated by pub- 
lic folly. It has pleased heaven that I should live to survive both 
these afflictions, and I am grateful for its mercy. I now come here 
through a composed and quiet city — I read no expression in any 
face, save such as marks the ordinary feelings *of social life, or the 
various characters of civil occupation — I see no frightful spectacle 
of infuriated power or suffering humanity — I see no tortures — 1 hear 
no shrieks — I no longer see the human heart charred in the flame 
ei its own vile and paltry passions, black and bloodless, capable 



2B6 LIFE OP CURRAN. 

only of catching and communicating that, destructive fire by whicl 
it devours, and is itself devoured — I no longer behold the ravagei 
of that odious bigotry by which we were deformed, and degradec 
and disgraced; a bigotry against which no honest man should evei 
miss an opportunity of putting his countrymen, of all sects, and 
all descriptions, upon their guard. 

" Even in this melancholy place I feel myself restored and n 
created by breathing the mild atmosphere of justice, mercy, am 
humanity— feel I am addressing the parental authority of the lawl 
I feel I am addressing a jury of my countrymen, of my tellow sul 
jects, and my feUow christians, against whom my heart is wagii 
no concealed hostility, from whom my face is disguising nd laten] 
sentiment of repugnance or disgust. I have not now to touch thi 
high-raised strings of an angry passion in those that hear me ; noj 
have I the terror of thinking, that, if those strings cannot be snappe( 
hy the stroke, they will be only provoked into a more instigate( 
vibration. 

" I have heard much of the dreadful extent of the conspiracy 
against this country, of the narrow escape of the government: yot 
now see the fact as it is. By the judicious adoption of a mild am 
conciliatory system of conduct, what was six years ago a formidable 
rebellion has now dwindled down to a drunken, riotous insurreci 
tion— disgraced, certainly, by some odious atrocities : its objects 
whatever they were, no doubt highly criminal ; but, as an attac! 
upon the state, of the most contemptible insignificance. 

" I have no pretension to be the vindicator of the lord lieutenanl 
of Ireland, whose person I do not know that I have ever seen • aj 
the same time, when f am so necessarily forced upon the subject, 
feel no disposition to conceal the respect and satisfaction witi 
which I 'saw the king's representative comport himself as he did, at^ 
a crisis of no little anxiety, though of no considerable danger. I 
think it was a proof of his excellency's firmness and good sense, 
not to discredit his own opinion of his confidence in the public 
safety, by an ostentatious display of unnecessary open preparation ; 
and I think he did himself equal honour, by preserving his usual 
temper, and not suffering himself to be exasperated by the event, 
when it did happen, into the adoption of any violent or precipitate 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 297 

measures. Perhaps I may even be excused, if I confess that I 
was not wholly free from some professional vanity when I saw that 
the descendant of a great lawyer* was capable of remembering 
what, without the memory of such an example, he perhaps might 
not have done, that, even in the moment of peril, the law is the 
best safeguard of the constitution. At all events, I feel that a man> 
who, at all times, has so freely censured the extravagancies of 
power and force as I have done, is justified, if not bound, by the 
consistency of character, to give the fair attestation of his opinion 
to the exercise of wisdom and humanity wherever he finds them, 
whether in a friend or in a stranger," 

Upon the subject of the mere political folly, " setting even apart 
all moral tie of duty or allegiance, or the difficulty or the danger" 
of Ireland's desiring to separate from England, and fraternize with 
France, Mr. Curran observes, " Force only can hold the acquisi- 
tions of the French consul. What community of interest can he 
have with the different nations that he has subdued and plundered? 
clearly none. Can he venture to establish any regular and pro- 
tected system of religion amongst them.^ Wherever he erected an 
altar, he would set up a monument of condemnation and reproach 
upon those wild and fantastic speculations which he is pleased to 
dignify with the name of philosophy, but which other men, perhaps 
because they are endowed with a less aspiring intellect, conceive 
to be a desperate, anarchical atheism, giving to every man a dis- 
pensing power for the gratification of his passion, teaching him 
that he may be a rebel to his conscience with advantage, and to 
his God with impunity. Just as soon would the government of 
Britain venture to display the crescent in their churches, as an 
honorary member of all faiths to show any reverence to the cross 
in his dominions. Apply the same reasoning to liberty. Can he 
venture to give any reasonable portion of it to his subjects at home, 
or his vassals abroad ? The answer is obvious : sustained merely 
by military force, his unavoidable policy is to make the army evety 
thing and the people nothing. If he ventured to elevate his soldiers 
into citizens, and his wretched subjects into freemen, be would 

* Lord Hardwickft. 
83 



298 I li'E OF CIJRRAN. 

form a confederacy of mutual interest between both, against which 
he could not exist a moment. 

" I may be asked are these merely my own speculations, or 
have others in Ireland adopted them. I answer freely, non mens 
hie sermo est. It is, to my own knowledge, the result of serious 
reflection in numbers of our countrymen. In the storm of arbitrary 
sway, in the distraction of torture and suffering, the human mind 
had lost its poise and tone, and was incapable of sober reflection ; 
but, by removing those terrors from it, by holding an even hand 
between all parties, by disdaining the patronage of any sect or 
faction, the people of Ireland were left at liberty to consider her 
real situation and interest ; and happily for herself, I trust in God, 
she has availed herself of the opportunity.- With respect to the 
higher orders, even of those who thought they had some cause to 
complain, I know this to be the fact — they are not so blind as not 
to see the difference between being proud, and jealous, and punc- 
tilious, in any claim of privilege or right between themselves and 
their fellow subjects, and the mad and desperate depravity of seek- 
ing the redress of any dissatisfaction that they might feel, by an 
appeal to force, or the dreadful recourse to treason and to blood. 
As to the humbler order of our people, for whom, I confess, I feel 
the greatest sympathy, because there are more of them to be un- 
done — I have not the same opportunity of knowing their actual 
opinions ; but if their opinions be other than I think they ought to 
be, would to God they were present in this place, or that I had the 
opportunity of going into their cottages — and they well know I 
should not disdain to visit them, and to speak to them the language 
of affection and candour on the subject — I should have little diffi- 
culty in showing to their quick and apprehensive minds how easy 
it is, when the heart is incensed, to confound the evils which are 
inseparable from the destiny of imperfect man, with those which 
arise from the faults or errors of his political situation. I would 
put a few questions to their candid, unadulterated sense : Do you 
think you have made no advance to civil prosperity within the last 
twenty years ^ Are your opinions of modern and subjugated France 
the same that you entertained of popular and revolutionary France 
fourteen years ago f Have you any hope, that, if the first consul 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 299 

got possession of your island, he would treat you half so well as he 
does those countries at his door, whom he must respect more than 
he can respect or regard you? Can you suppose that the perfidy 
and treason of surrendering your country to an invader would, to 
your new master, be any pledge of your allegiance? Can you 
suppose, that, while a single French soldier was willing to accept 
an acre of Irish ground, that he would leave that acre in the pos- 
session of a man who had shown himself so stupidly dead to the 
suggestions of the most obvious interest, and to the ties of the most 
imperious moral obligations? Do you think he would feel any 
kind-hearted sympathy for you? Answer yourselves by asking, 
what sympathy does he feel for Frenchmen, whom he is ready by 
thousands to bury in the ocean, in the barbarous gambling of his 
wild ambition? What sympathy, then, could bind him to you? 
He is not your countryman : the scene of your birth and your child- 
hood is not endeared to his heart by the reflection that it was also 
the scene of his. He is not your fellow-christian : he is not, there- 
fore, bound to you by any similarity of duty in this world, or by any 
union of hope beyond the grave ; what, then, could you suppose 
the object of his visit, or the consequence of his success? Can 
you be so foolish as not to see that he would use you as slaves 
while he held you ; and that when he grew weary, which he would 
soon become, of such a worthless and precarious possession, he 
would carry you to market in some treaty of peace, barter you for 
some more valuable concession, and surrender you to expiate by 
your punishment and degradation, the advantage you had given 
him by your follies and your crimes." 

The particulars of the scene on the night of the 23d of July are 
not inserted here.* It resembled a riot rather than an insurrection , 
and was alarming only because it was unexpected ; for, notwith- 
standing the momentary panic which it excited, in a few hours the 
public tranquillity was restored ; yet however innocuous to the 
state, it was to Ireland a great calamity. It revived and confirmed 
many sentiments of internal animosity and distrust, by fatally prov- 
ing that the elements of disorder were not extinct ; it violently tore 

* The account of the plan of insurrection, drawn up by Mr. Robert 
Emmet during his imprisonment, will be found m the Appendix, 



300 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

from the services of his country the respected Lord Kilwarden, one 
of the most upright of her magistrates ; the wisest, because the 
gentlest, in her councils; the man who of all others least required 
such a martyrdom to consecrate his name. It is scarcely necessary 
to add, that to Mr. Curran the fate of a person whom he had so 
long loved and honoured, and who in the season of trial had proved 
so tender a friend to him, and to their common country, was a source 
of profound and lasting affliction.* 

But it was not solely in this point of view that the late events 
effected Mr. Curran : there were some accompanying circumstances 
which more intimately related to himself; and however painful 
their introduction may be, it yet becomes every one who has a 

* It is universallj' sgreed that the murder of this excellent man was the^ 
unpremeditated act oi a ferocious rabble ; but there are various accounts of 
their probable motives in wantonly sacrificing so upright and humane a 
judge to their fury. A popular explanation of this is, that the perpetrators 
mistook him for another person. There is also an account which admits 
the mistake in the first instance, but subjoins other particulars which appear 
sufficiently probable ; and as some of the facts, of which there is no doubt, 
reflect the highest honour upon Lord Kil-ivarden's memory, the whole shall 
be given here. 

In the year 1795, when he was attorney -general, a nurnber of young* metl 
(all of whom were between the age of fifteen and twenty) were indicted for 
high treason. Upon the day appointed for their trial they appeared in the 
dock, wearing shirts vi^ith tuckers and open collars, in the manner usual with 
boys. When the chief justice of the King's Bench, before whom they were 
to be tried, came into court and observed them, he called out, " Well, Mr. 
Attorney- I suppose you're ready to go on with the trials of these tuckered 
traitors ?" The attorne3^-general was ready, and had attended for the pur- 
pose ; but indignant and disgusted at hearing such language from the judg- 
ment seat, he rose, and replied, '' No, my lord, I am not ready ; and (added 
he, in a low tone to one of the prisoner's counsel w^ho was near him) if I have 
any power to save the lives of these boys, whose extreme youth I did not 
before observe, that man shall never have the gratification of passing sen- 
tence upon a single one of these tuckered traitors." He performed bis 
promise, and soon after procured pardons for them all, upon the condition 
of their expatriating themselves forever; but one of them obstinately refus* 
ing to accept the pardon upon that condition, he was tried, convicted, and 
executed. Thus far the facts rest upon credible authorities : what follows 
is given as an unauthenticated report. After the death of this young manj 
his relatives (it is said) readily listening to every misrepresentation which 
flattered their resentment, became persuaded that the attorney -general had 
selected him alone to suffer the utmost severity of the law. One of these (a 
person named Shannon) was an insurgent on the 23d of July, and when Lord 
Kilwarden, hearing the popular cry of vengeance, exclaimed from his car- 
riage, " It is I, Kilwarden. chief justice of the King's Bench !" " Then," 
cried out Shannon, " you're the man that / want !" and plunged a pike into 
his lordship's body. 

This story was current among the lower Dfders in Dublin, who were the 
most likely to know the fact. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 301 

sense of the fidelity which is due to the public whom he addresses, 
not to screen himself behind his personal feeling??, where a para 
mount duty demands their sacrifice ; still less would he, upon whom 
that duty at present devolves, be justified under such a pretext, in 
leaving the possibility of any misconception or reproach regnrding 
One whose memory the combined sentiments of nature, of country, 
and of individual respect, impel him to cherish and revere. In the 
following facts, as far as they are generally connected with Mr. 
Curran, there is indeed no new disclosure. It is a matter of notO' 
riety, that at this period his house was searched — that he appeared 
himself before the members of the privy council — and that a rumour 
prevailed, to which his political enemies gave a ready credit, and 
as far as they could, a confirmation, that he was personally impli- 
cated in the recent conspiracy. To be silent, therefore, upon ci 
subject so well known, would be a fruitless effort to suppress it ; to 
allude to it remotely and timidly would be to imply that the whole 
could not bear to be told : it only remains then to give an explicit 
statement of the particulars, and to subjoin one or two original 
documents, which will be found to corroborate it in every essential 
point. 

The projector of the late insurrection, Mr. Robert Emmet, who 
was a young gentleman of a highly respectable family, of very 
striking talents and interesting manners, was in the habit of visit- 
ing at Mr. Curran's house : here he soon formed an attachment for 
Mr. Curran's youngest daughter. Of the progress of that attach- 
liient, and of the period and occasion of his divulging it to her, 
Mr. Emmet's letters, inserted hereafter, contain all that is to be 
told. It is necessary, however, to add, as indeed will appear from 
those letters, that her father remained in total ignorance of the mo- 
tive of Mr. Emmet's visits, until subsequent events made it known 
to all. To a man of his celebrity and attractive conversation, there 
seemed nothing singular in finding his society cultivated by any 
young person to whom he afforded (as he so generally did to all) 
the opportunities of enjoying it. As the period, however, of the 
intended insurrection approached, Mr. Curran began to suspect, 
from minute indications, which would probably have escaped a less 
skilful observer, that his young visiter was actuated by some strong 



302 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

passions, which it cost him a perpetual effort to conceal ; and in 
consequence, wiihout assigning to those appearances any precise 
motive, or giving the subject much attention, he, in general terms, 
recommended to his family not to allow what was at present only 
a casual acquaintance to ripen into a greater degree of intimacy. 

Upon the failure of the insurrection, its leader escaped, and 
succeeded for some weeks in secreting himself. There is reason 
to believe, that had he attended solely to his safety, he could have 
easily effected his departure from the kingdom ; but in the same 
spirit of romantic enthusiasm which distinguished his short career, 
he could not submit to leave a country to which he could never 
more return, without making an effort to have one final interview 
with the object of his unfortunate attachment, in order to receive 
her personal forgiveness for what he now considered as the deep- 
est injury. It was apparently with a view to obtaining this last 
gratiocaiion that he selected the place of concealment in which he 
was discovered : he was arrested in a house situate midway be- 
tween Dublin and Mr. Curran's country seat. Upon his person 
were found some papers, which showed that subsequent to the in- 
surrection he had corresponded with one of that gentleman's fami- 
ly : a warrant accordingly followed, as. a matter of course, to ex- 
amine Mr, Curran's house, where some of Mr. Emmet's letters 
were found, which, together with the documents taken upon his 
person, placed beyond a doubt his connexion with the late conspir- 
acy, and were afterwards used as evidence upon his trial. 

It was from this legal proceeding that Mr. Curran received the 
first intimation of the melancholy attachment in which one of his 
children had been involved. This is not the place to dwell upon 
the agony which such a discovery occasioned to the private feel- 
ings of the father. It was not the private calamity alone which he 
^bad to deplore ; it came embittered by other circumstances, which, 
for the moment, gave his sensibility an inlenser shock. He was a 
prominent public character, and from the intrepid resistance which 
he had uniformly made in the senate and at the bar to the unconsti- 
tutional measures of the state, was inevitably exposed to the po- 
litical hatred of many, who would have gloried in the ruin of his 
reputation as in a decisive triumph over those principles which he 



LIFE OF cuhran. 303 

had all his life supported. He had seen and experienced too much 
of party calumny not to apprehend that it would show litde respect 
for a misfortune which could afford a pretext for accusation ; and 
however secure he might feel as to the tinal results of the most 
merciless investigation, he still could not contemplate without an- 
guish the possibility of having to suffer the " humiliation of an ac- 
quittal." But his mind was soon relieved from all such distress- 
ing anticipations. He waited upon the attorney-general,* and 
tendered his person and papers to abide any inquiry which the 
government might deem it expedient to direct. That officer en- 
tered into his situation with the most prompt and manly sympathy, 
and instead of assuming the character of an accuser of the father, 
more generously displayed his zeal in interceding for the child. 
At his instance Mr. Curran accompanied him to the privy council. 
Upon his first entrance there was some indication of the hostile 
spirit which he had originally apprehended. A noble lord, who at 
that time held the highest judicial situation in Ireland, undertook to 
examine him upon the transaction which had occasioned his attend- 
ance. To do this was undoubtedly his duty ; but overstepping his 
duty, or at least his prudence, he thought proper to preface his in- 
tended questions by an austere, authoritative air, of which the pal- 
pable meaning was, that he considered intimidation as the most ef- 
fectual mode of extracting the truth. He fixed his eye upon Mr. 
Curran, and was proceeding to cross-examine his countenance, 
when (as is well remembered by the spectators of the scene) the 
swell of indignation, and the glance of stern dignify and contempt 
which he encountered there, gave his own nerves the shock which 
he had meditated for another's, and compelled him to shrink back 
into his chair, silent and disconcerted at the failure of his rash 
experiment. With this single exception, Mr. Curran was treated 
with the utmost delicacy ; for this he was principally indebted to 
the friendship of the attorney-general, who finding that every in- 
quiry and document upon the subject explained all the circum- 
stances beyond the possibility of an unfavourable conjecture, hu- 

* The right honourable Standish 0'Grady,the present Chief Baron of the 
Exchequer in Ireland. 



304 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

manely and (where it was necessary) firmly interposed his authori-' 
ty, to save the feelings of the parent from any additional afl3iction,^ 
The following are the letters which it seems requisite to introduce.1 
There was a time when the publication of them would have excited! 
pain, but that time is past. The only persons to whom such a pro-' 
eeeding could have given a pang, the father and the child, are now* 
beyond its reach; and their survivor, who from a sense of duty^ 
permits them to see the light, does so under a full persuasion, that ' 
all those who from personal knowledge, or from report, may some*] 
limes recal their memories with sentiments of tenderness or esteem,i 
will find nothing in the contents of those documents which can pro* 
voke the intrusion of a harsher feeling. 

FROM MR. ROBERT EMMET TO JOHN 
PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ* 

" I did not expect you to be my counsel. I nominated you, 
because not to have done so might have appeared remarkable. 

Had Mr. been in town, I did not even wish to have seen 

you ; but as he was not, I wrote to you to come to me once. I 
know that I have done you very severe injury, much greater than 
I can atone for with my life : that atonement I did offer to make 
before the privy council, by pleading guilty, if those documents 
were suppressed. I offered more — I offered, if I was permitted to 
consult some persons, and if they would consent to an accommoda- 
tion for saving the lives of others, that I would only require for my 
part of it the suppression of thoge documents, and that I would 
abide the event of my own trial. This also was rejected ; and 
nothing but individual information (with the exception of names) 
would be taken. My intention was, not to leave the suppression 
of those documents to possibility, but to render it unnecessary for 
any one to plead for me, by pleading guilty to the charge myself. 

" The circumstances that I am now going to mention, I do not 
state in my own justification. When I first addressed your daugh- 
ter, I expected that in another week my own fate would be decided. 
I knew that in case of success, many others might look on me dif- 
ferently from what they did at tbat momeni ; but I speak with sin* 



LIFE OF CURRAN. gQg 

cerity, when I say that I never was anxious for sitnatrbn or distinc- 
tion myself, and I did not wish to be united to one who was. I 
spoke to your daughter, neither expecting, nor, in fact, under those 
Circumstances wishing that there should be a return of attachment ; 
but wishing to judge of her dispositions, to know how far they 
might be not unfavourable or disengaged, and to know what foun- 
dation I might afterwards have to count on. I received no en- 
couragement whatever. She told rne that she had no attachment for 
any person, nor did she seem likely to have any that could make 
her wish to quit you. I staid away till the time had elapsed when l 
found that the event to which I allude was to be postponed indefi- 
nitely. I returned by a kind of infatuation, thinking that to myself 
only was I giving pleasure or pain. 1 perceived no progress of at- 
tachment on her part, nor any thing in her conduct to distinguish 
me from a common acquaintance. Afterwards I had reason to 
suppose that discoveries were made, and I should be obliged to 
quit the kingdom immediately ; and I came to make a renuncia^ 
tion of any approach to friendship that might have been formed. 
On that very day she herself spoke to me to discontinue my visits : 
I told her that it was my intention, and I mentioned the reason. I 
then, for the first time, found, when I was unfortunate, by the man- 
ner in which she was affected, that there was a return of affection, 
and that it was too late to retreat. My own apprehensions, also, I 
afterwards found, were without cause, and I remained. There has 
been much culpability on my part in all this, but there has also 
been a great deal of that misfortune which seems uniformly to have 
accompanied me. That I have written to your daughter since an 
unfortunate event has taken place, was an additional breach of 
propriety, for which I have suffered well ; but I will candidly con- 
fess, that I not only do not feel it to have been of the same extent, 
but that I consider it to have been unavoidable after what had pass- 
ed ; for though I will not attempt to justify in the smallest degree 
my former conduct yet when an attachment was once formed be- 
tween us— and a sincerer one never did exist— I feel that, peculiar- 
ly circumstanced as I then was, to have left her uncertain of my 
situation would neither have weaned her affections, nor lessened 
her anxieiy ; and looking upon her as one, whom, if I had lired, I 

39 



306 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

hoped to have had my partner for life, I did hold the removing her 
anxiety above every other consideration. I would rather have had 
the affections of your daughter in the back settlements of America, 
than the first situation this country could afford without them. I 
know not whether this will be any extenuation of my offence — I 
know not whether it will be any extenuation of it to know, that if 
I had that situation in my power at this moment, I would relinquish 
it to devote my life to her happiness — I know not whether success 
would have blotted out the recollection of what I have done — but 
I know that a man, with the coldness of death on him, need not be 
made to feel any other coldness, and that he may be spared any 
addition to the misery he feels not for himself, but for those to 
whom he has left nothing but sorrow."* 

FROM THE SAME TO RICHARD CURRAN, ESQ, 

" MY DEAREST RICHARD, 

" I find I have but a few hours to live, but if it was the last 
moment, and that the power of utterance was leaving me, I would 
thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generous expres- 
sions of affection and forgiveness to me. If there was any one in 
the world in whose breast my death might be supposed not to sti- 
fle every spark of resentment, it might be you — 1 have deeply in- 
jured you — I have injured the happiness of a sister that you love, and 
who was formed to give happiness to every one about her, instead of 
having her own mind a prey to affliction. Oh ! Richard, I have no ex- 
cuse to offer, but that I meant the reverse ; I intended as much happi- 
ness for Sarah as the most ardent love could have given her. I never 
did tell you how much I idolised her : — it was not with a wild or un- 
founded passion, but it was an attachment increasing every hour, 
from an admiration of the purity of her mind, and respect for her 
talents. I did dwell in secret rpon the prospect of our union. I 
did hope that success, while it afforded the opportunity of our 
union, might be the means of confirming an attachment, which 

* The original, from which the above has been copied, is not signed or 
dated. It was written in the interval between Mr. Emmet's conviction and 
execution. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 307 

misfortune had called forth, I did not look to honours for myself — 
praise I would have asked from the lips of no man ; but I would 
have wished to read in the glow of Sarah's countenance that her 
husband was respected. My love, Sarah ! it was not thus that I 
thought to have requited your affection. I did hope to be a prop 
round which your affections might have clung, and which would 
never have been shaken ; but a rude blast has snapped it, and they 
have fallen over a grave. 

" This is no time for affliction. I have had public motives to 
sustain my mind, and I have not suffered it to sink ; but there have 
been moments in my imprisonment when my mind was so sunk by 
grief on her account, that death would have been a refuge. 

" God bless you, my dearest Richard. I am obliged to leave off 

immediately. 

« ROBERT EMMET." 

This letter was written at twelve o'clock on the day of Mr. 
Emmet's execution, and the firmness and regularity of the original 
hand-writing contain a striking and affecting proof of the little in- 
fluence which the approaching event exerted over his frame. The 
same enthusiasm which allured him to his destiny, enabled him to 
support its utmost rigour. He met his fate with unostentatious for- 
titude ; and although few could ever think of justifying his projects 
or regretting their failure, yet his youth, his talents, the great re- 
spectability of his connexions, and the evident delusion of which he 
was the victim, have excited more general sympathy for his unfor- 
tunate end, and more forbearance towards his memory, than is 
usually extended to the errors or sufferings of political offenders. 



^08 ^lf'£ OF CURRAIV. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Jlr.Curran appointcdMaster of the Rolls in Ireland — His literary projects- 
Letter to Mr. M*Naliy — Account of a visit to Scotland in a letter to Miss 
PhilpQt— Letter to Mr. Lesiie— Letters to Mr. Hetherington. 

*Ufon the death of Mr. Pitt, the politicaj party with whom Mr. 
Curran had so long been acting having come into office, he was 
appointed Blaster of the Rolls in Ireland, and a member of the 
privy council. t With this appointment he was dissatisfied at the 

* Ip the iut^^val b^tvyeen 1803 and the period of bis elevation to the 
bench (1806) Mr. Curran farther distinguished himself at the bar in the case 
of Massey agjainst the Marquis of Headfort (July, 1804) and in the case of 
Mr, Justice Johnson (February, 1805,) His speeches upon those occasions 
are among his most vigorous efforts ; but ample specimens of his forensic 
eloquence having been already introduced, the reader is referred to the pub- 
lished collection. 

t Upon this occasion the Irish bar convened a meeting, and voted the 
following address to Mr. Curran : — 

" ^iR — in your recent appointment to a high and dignified situation, the 
first pride of the Irish bar feels itself gratified, that independent spirit, pre- 
eminent talents, and inflexible integrity have recommended their possesser 
to the royal favour, and procured his advancement to the bench of justice. 

'* Yes, Sir, we trust that the lustre which shone upon your distinguished 
progress as an advocate will beam with a milder but more useful influence 
Jrom the bench ; and that the unbiassed, impartial, and upright judge will 
be found in the person who exalted the character of the Irish bar, by his 
eloquence, and uniformly supported the rights and privileges of an honoura- 
ble profession." 



SLR, GUERAN's answer. 



^' Gentlemen — I thank you from my heart for this proof of your confi- 
dence and affection. The approving opinion of so enlightened and inde- 
pendent a body as the Irish bar would be a most valuable reward of merit 
much superior to mine, which I am conscious has gone little beyond a dispo- 
sition, but I trust an honest and ardent disposition , so to act in my public and 
professional characters, as not to be altogether unworthy of the name of an 
Irishman of that disposition. I receive your kind commendation with pride. 
I feel that probity of intention is all that we can be responsible for. 

" 1 am peculiarly gratified by the flattering attestation you are pleased to 
bestow on my endeavours to support the privileges of our profession. They 
are vitally and inseparably connected with the enjoyment of constitutional 
liberty and the effectual administration of justice. The more active part 
which I may have taken in the defence of these privileges I bequeath to 
you, but be assured that I bring with me, to the situation where it has been 
the pleasure of his majesty to place me, the most perfect conviction, that in 
continuing to maintain them, I shall co-operate with you in the discharge 
of one of the most important duties that can bind us to our country. 



LIFE OF CURRAJ^, QQQ 

time, and he never became entirely reconciled to it. It imposed 
upon his mind a necessity of unaccustomed labour and unaccus- 
tomed restraint, to which opposite habits of so many years did not 
allow him easily to submit. Whatever might be its dignity or 
emolument, it had no political consequence ; and therefore, to him, 
who had acted such a part in the history of his country, it seemed 
rather like a compensation for former services, than as a means of 
taking that honourable share to which he felt himself intitled, in an 
administration that promised such benefits to Ireland. These sen- 
timents of disgust, in which he perhaps indulged to an unreasonable 
excess, disturbed the friendship which had so long subsisted be- 
tween him and the late Mr, George Ponsonby, whom Mr. Curran 
consid(^red as having, by his acquiescence in his appointment to 
the Rolls, attended to his nominal interests at the expense of his 
feelings and his reputation. In this opinion, however encouraged 
by some subsequent circumstances, it is due to the memory of Mr; 
Ponsonby to state, that Mr. Curran was mistaken. Mr. Ponsonby 
made no such intentional sacrifice of his friend. He imagined that 
he was observing, with the strictest honour, the spirit of every 
former engagement, although it cannot be too much lamented that 
he should have withheld all explanation on the subject, until a 
mutual alienation had taken place, which no explanation could re- 
call. The impression was never removed from Mr. Curran'a mind, 
that he had, upon this occasion, been unkindly treated ; but it is 
pleasing to observe, that his resentment was softened and finally 
subdued by the recollection of his former regard and respect. He 
visited Mr, Ponsonby in his last illness, and after his lamented 
death, took every opportunity of dwelling upon his virtues, and at- 
testing the claims, which the long and disinterested services of him- 
self and his family had given their name to the gratitude of their 
country. 

The remaining years of Mr. Curran's life contain little of inci- 
dent. His time was passed without much variety between the du- 
ties of his judicial situation, and the enjoyment of that social in- 
tercourse for which his taste continued undiminished to the last. 
It was observed by his friends, to whom he was an object of so 
much interest, that the slightest circumstance connected with him 



310 I-IFE OF CURRAN. 

attracted their attention, that his spirits began to decline I'rom the 
moment of his elevation to the bench. He felt sensible himself, 
fhat the sudden discontinuance of those modes of intellectual exer- 
cise, which an uninterupted habit of so many years had rendered 
almost a necessary of life^ was impairing the health of his mind. 
All his powers were still in their fullest vigour, and he could not 
but feel discontented and mortified at finding them (not so much re- 
leased from toil as) condemned to repose. In the hope of removing 
this inquietude by indulging his faculties in their accustomed tastes, 
he began to project one or two literary works. One of them, and 
which it is much to be regretted that he had not the firmness to ex- 
ecute, was memoirs of his own time ; but all the intreaties of his 
friends, and all his own resolutions, gave way before his uncon- 
querable aversion to written compositions. — The only notice bf 
this intended work found among his papers, was the following 
motto and preface : 

** You that propose to be the historian of yourself, go first and 
trace out the boundary of your grave — stretch forth your hand, and 
.touch the stone that is to mark your head, and swear by the Ma- 
jesty of Death, that your testimony shall be true, unwarped by 
prejudice, unbiassed by favour, and unstained by malice ; so mayest 
thou be a witness not unworthy to be examined before the awful 
tribunal of that after time, which cannot begin, until you shall 
have been numbered with the dead. 

" I have frequently conceived the design of writing some me- 
moirs of myself, and of the times in which I have lived, but I have 
been prevented by other avocations, not very compatible with such 
a purpose. I was also detered by the great hazard to which every 
man is exposed who ventures to take himself for a subject. What 
security can he offer to himself or to his reader against the glosses 
and perversions of false modesty and vain glory ? How can he 
satisfy either that he is not an advocate, when he should be only a 
reporter ? As to the strange and wayward destinies that have agi- 
tated this unhappy country during the interval I speak of — when i 
recollect the strong incitement that I felt as an observer or an actor, 
can I hope to subside into that unfevered moderation, without which 
I can scarcely be competent to the task of reviewing or recording 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 311 

them? And yet, perhaps, in my strong feeling of the difficulty and 
the danger, there may be some hope of escape. The conscious- 
ness may be some safeguard against myself, and the fairness of the 
avowal will naturally prevent the reader from following me when 
I am led astray. I have therefore resolved to make some attempt 
upon the subject, in such intervals of health or of leisure as I may 
be able to command ; pursuing it in that way, I cannot hope for 
much minuteness of detail, or much exactness of connexion. But, 
however imperfect the performance may be, and indeed must be 
under such circumstances, yet if it shall contribute to preserve the 
memory of some acts, and of some actors, that ought not to perish, 
but should be preserved for the purpose of praise or punishment or 
example, my labour, however humble, will not be without its use." 

He thus alludes to the same subject in one of his private letters. 

" ] have long thought of doing something on the time in which I 
have myself lived, and acted, and suffered ; from the bringing ire- 
land, in 1782, from the grave in which she had slept for so many 
centuries, to her reinterment in 1800; after so short an interval of 
hectical convalescence, and of hope so cruelly and effectually as- 
sailed and extinguished, probably for ever! This must of neces- 
sity draw me to collateral notice of myself in some small and very 
subordinate degree — the few events that befel myself — and the sen- 
timents and opinions that I entertained upon public affairs, together 
with the notions that 1 formed as a public and professional m.an. 
Perhaps the strong terror which I anticipate at the possible seduc- 
tions of silly vanity and egotism may be some antidote against their 
poison. And yet perhaps, on this very point, my present feelings 
should convince me how little I have to hope from my own caution 
or discretion. 1 am conscious that 1 feel uneasy at thinking that 
the fooleries and falsehoods that have been published as rfiemoirs 
of me during my life, will be more wantonly repeated when I am 
gone, which must be soon. And though I now think my only idea 
is to leave behind me some little postcript, merely to prevent mis- 
representation, and modestly confining itself within the extreme in- 
significance of the subject, who, my dear Dick^ will go bail for the 
quill that is born of a goose ?" 



312 tIFE OF CURRAN. 

Another and a more favourite design, which the same distaste to 
writing involved in a similar fate, was the composition of a novel, 
of whieh the scenes and characters were to be connected with the 
modern history of Ireland. Of this work, which since the period 
of the Union he had been meditating, his mind had completed the 
whole plan: he often repeated long passages, descriptive of the 
most interesting situations, and marked by a style of affecting elo- 
quence which would have rendered the work, had he submitted to 
the task of committing it to paper, a valuable and very original ac- 
cession to that department of English literature. 

However, although subsequent to Mr. Curran's leaving the bar, 
his mind produced little that could add to his previous reputation, 
there still remain many farther examples of his style and opinions, 
preserved in his letters on private and public subjects, and in occa- 
sional speeches, from which a selection shall be introduced in the 
remaining portion of his history. The greater number of the pri- 
vate letters are written from England, which, notwithstanding his 
constant complaints against what he considered the cold unsocial 
manners of its people, he seized every opportunity of visiting, and 
seldom quitted without reluctance and despondency. This was 
particularly the case since the Union, of which the effects had beeii 
so fatal to the society of the Irish capital. 

TO LEONARD M^NALLY, ESQ. DUBLIN. 

" Godwin's, 41 Skinner-street, London. 

^' Dear Mac, 

" I got the cover yesterday, thinking to write a very 
long wise letter to you ; now I have only the few moments that G.'s 
griskin takes to be burnt. Poor Tooke is, I fear, at his last. A 
singular man ! One glory he has eminently — ^he has been highly 
valued by many good men of his day, and persecuted by almost 
every scoundrel that united the power with the will to do so. His 
talents were of the first stamp, his intellect most clear, his attach- 
ment to England, I think, inflexible, his integrity not to be seduced^ 
-and his personal courage not to be shaken. If this shall be admit- 



\ 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 3J3 

ted, he has lived long enough ; and if it is not, he has lived too 
long. 

" My health is much better ; my breast quite free, the pain gone, 
my appetite rather better, sleep not so profound, spirits flatter, 
temper more even, altogether some gainer by the reduction of wine. 
At your side, I understand, my good friends have Sangradoed me, 
but I have taken only the water, no bleeding for me. I have written 
to Amelia ; that may save you some three pages, which might be 
blank and written at the same time. I would beg a line, but I 
shall have set out too soon to get it. No news here, but what the 
papers give you ; they are all mad about the convention ; I differ 
from them totally, as I feel a disposition to do on every subject. 

" I am glad to hear you are letting yourself out at Old Orchard; 
you are certainly unwise in giving up such an inducement to exer- 
cise, and the absolute good of being so often in good air. 1 have 
been talking about your habit without naming yourself. I am more 
persuaded that you and Egan are not sufficiently afraid of weak 
liquors. I can say, from trial, how little pains it costs to correct a 
bad habit. On the contrary, poor nature, like an ill-used mistress, 
is delighted with the return of our kindness, and is anxious to show 
her gratitude for that return, by letting us see how well she be- 
comes it. 

" I am the more solicitous upon this point from having made this 
change, which T see will make me waited for in heaven longer than 
perhaps they looked for. If you do not make some pretext for 
lingering, you can have no chance of conveying me to the wherry ; 
and the truth is, 1 do not like surviving old friends. 1 am some- 
what inclined to wish for posthumous reputation ; and if you go 
before me, I shall lose one of the most irreclaimable of my trum- 
peters ♦, therefore, dear Mac, no more water, and keep the other 
clement, your wind, for the benefit of your friends. I will show 
my gratitude as well as I can, by saying handsome things of you to 
the saints and angels before you come. Best regards to all with. 

you. 

" Yours, &c. 

** J. P. C." 
40 



314 ' ^i^E OF CUllRAN. 

TO MISS PHILPOT, DUBLIN. 

*'*.oudon Castle (Scotland) Sept. 12, 181©, 

« The day is too bad for shooting, so I write. We arrived in 
miserable weather at Donaghadee ; thence we set sail for the Port, 
where, after a prosperous voyage of ten hours, we arrived. Two 
English gentlemen had got before us to the inn, and engaged four 
horses, all there were ; two might have drawn them one very short 
stage, and they saw us prepare to set out in a cart, which we did, 
and I trust with a cargo of more good manners and good humour 
aboard us than the two churls could boast in their chaise and four. 

" I was greatly delighted with this country ; you see no trace 
here of the devil wdrking against the wisdom and beneficence of 
God, and torturing and degrading his creatures. It seems the 
romancing of travelling ; but 1 am satisfied of the fact, that the poor- 
est man here has his children taught to read and write, and that in 
every house is found a bible, and in almost every house a clock; 
and the fruits of this are manifest in the intelligence and manners 
of all ranks. The natural effect of literary information, in all its 
stages, is to give benevolence and modesty. Let the intellectual 
taper burn ever so brightly, the horizon which it lights is sure but 
scanty ; and if it soothes our vanity a little, as being the circle of 
our light, it must check it also, as being the boundary of the inter- 
minable region of darkness that lies beyond it. I never knew any 
person of any real taste and feeling, in whom knowledge and 
humility were not in exact proportion. In l^cotland what a work 
have the four and twenty letters to show for themselves! — the 
natural enemies of vice, and folly, and slavery; the great sowers, 
but the still greater weeders, of the human soil. Nowhere can 
you See the cringing hypmcrisy of dissembled detestation, so in- 
separable from oppression : and as little do you meet the hard, and 
dull, and right lined angles of the southern visage ; you find the 
notion exact and the phrase direct, with the natural tone of the 
Scottish muse. 

'• The first night, at Ballintray, the landlord attended us at sup- 
per : he would do so, though we begged him' not. We talked ta 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 315 

him of the cultivation of potatoes. I said, I wondered at his taking 
them in place of his native food, oatmeal, so much more substan- 
tial. His answer struck me as very characteristic of the genius of 
Scotland — frugal, tender, and picturesque. ' Sir,' said he, * we are 
not so much i' the wrong as you think ; the tilth is easy, they are 
swift i' the cooking, they take little fuel ; and then it is pleasant to 
see the gude wife wi' a' her bairns aboot the pot, and each wi' a 
potato in its hand.' 

" We got on to Ayr. It was fortunate ; it was the last day of 
the rain and the first of the races ; the town was unusually full, 
and we stood at the inn door — no room for us. * My dear Cap- 
tain,'* said I, ' I suppose we must lie in the streets." * No, that 
you shall not,' says a good-looking man — it was Campbell of Fair- 
field — ' my wife and I knew you were coming, and we have a warm 
bed ready for you ; she is your countrywoman, and I am no stran- 
ger to you ; I had a. trial in Dublin eight years ago, and you were 
in the cause.' ' Oh ! yes, Sir, 1 remember ; we beat the enemy.' 
' Oh ! yes, Sir,' says Campbell of Fairfield, ' / beat the enemy, 
though you were at his head.' I felt my appetite keen. I was 
charmed with the comical forgiveness of his hospitality. I assured 
him I heartily forgave him for threshing my rascal client ; and a 
few, moments brought me to the kind greeting of my very worthy 
countrywoman. They went a little aside, and I overheard their 
whispers about dinner. Trouble, you may suppose, I did not wish 
to give ; but the feeling of the possible delay by an additional 
dish, was my panic. ' My dear madam, I hope you won't make 
me feel that I am not one of your family, by adding any thing.' 
' No, that 1 won't,' says she ; * and if you doubt my word, I'll give 
you the security of seven gentlemen against any extravagance.' So 
saying, she pointed to a group of seven miniatures of young men, 
that hung over the fire-place. ' Six of those poor fellows are all 
over the earth ; the seventh, and these two little girls, are with us ; 
you will think that good bail against the wickedness of extrava- 
gance. Poor fellows !' she repeated. ' Nay, madam, don't say 
* poor fellows ;' at the moment when you feel that hospitality pre*, 

* Thp late Joseph Atkinson, E^q. of Dublin^... 



3iy LIFE OF CURRAN. 

vents the stranger from being a poor fellow, you don't tiiink this the 
only house in the world where the wanderer gets a dinner and a 
bed ; who knows, my dear countrywoman, but Providence is at 
this moment paying to some of your poor fellows far away from 
you, for what your kind heart thinks it is giving for nothing.' 
' Oh ! yes,' cried she : 'God bless you for the thought.' ' Amen, 
my dear madam,' answered I ; ' and I feel that he has done it.' 

" We were much pleased with the races ; not, you may suppose, 
at a few foolish horses forced to run after each other, but to see so 
much order and cheerfulness ; not a single dirty person nor a rag- 
ged coat. I was introduced to many of their gentry, Lord Egling- 
ton, Lord Casselis, Lord Archibald Hamilton, kc, and pressed 
very kindly to spend some time with them. 

" Poor Burns ! — his cabin could not be passed unvisited or un- 
wept; to its two little thatched rooms — kitchen and sleeping place — 
a slated sort of parlour is added, and 'tis now an alehouse. We 
found the keeper of it tipsey ; he pointed to the corner on one side 
of the fire, and with a most mal-a-propos laugh, observed, * there is 
the very spot where Robert Burns was born.' The genius and the 
fate of the man were already heavy on my heart ; but the drunken 
laugh of the landlord gave me such a view of the rock on which 
he foundered, I could not stand it, but burst into tears. 

" On Thursday we dine with Lord Eglington, and thence I hope 
to pursue our little tour to Lochlomond, Glasgow, Fidin burgh, &;c. 
These places are, at this time of the year, much deserted : howev- 
er we shan't feel it quite a solitude ; and, at all events, public 
buildings, &c. do not go to watering-places, so that still something 
will be visible. In this region the winter is always mild, but the 
rain is almost perpetual, and still worse as you advance to the 
north. An Englishman said to an Highlander, ' Bless me. Sir, 
does it rain for ever .^' The other answered — ' Oh ! nay, Sir, it 
maws whiles.' 

" See what a chronicle I have written, &c. &c. 

" J. P. C," 

The preceding is not the only record that Mr. Curran has left of 
his admiration of Scotland. His defence of Mr. Hajnilton Row^ 



LIFE OF CURRAN. Sl7 

contains a short but glowing eulogium upon the genius of that 
country, for whose splendid services in the cause of the human 
mind no praise can be too great. After speaking of the excessive 
terror of French principles, by which juries were governed in their 
verdicts, he proceeded :— '' There is a sort of aspiring and adven- 
turous credulity, which disdains assenting to obvious truths, and 
delights in catching at the improbability of circumstances, as its 
best ground of faith. To what other cause can you ascribe that 
in the wise, the reflecting, and the philosophic nation of Great 
Britain, a printer has been gravely found guilty of a libel, for pub- 
lishing those resolutions to which the present minister of that king 
dom had actually subscribed his name ? To what other cause can 
you ascribe what, in my mind, is still more astonishing ; — in such a 
country as Scotland — a nation cast in the happy medium betweeii 
the spiridess acquiescence of submissive poverty and the sturdy 
credulity of pampered wealth — cool and ardent — adventurous and 
persevering — winging her eagle flight against the blaze of every 
science, with an eye that never winks and a wing that never tires — 
crowned as she is with the spoils of every art, and decked with the 
wreath of every muse, from the deep and scrutinizing researches 
of her Hume to the sweet and simple, but not less sublime and pa- 
thetic, morality of her Burns — ^how from the bosom of a country 
like that, genius, and character, and talents, should be banished to 
a distant barbarous soil, condemned to pine under the horrid com- 
munion of vulgar vice and base-born profligacy, for twice the pe- 
riod that ordinary calculation gives to the continuance of human, 
life f"* 



TO PETER LESLIE, ESQ. DUBLIN, ' 

" Cheltenham, Sept. 11, 3811. 

*' DEAK PETER, 

" Don't open this till the little circle of our Hirish 
friends are together. You will be all glad to hear that an old 
friend is yet in the harbour of this stormy world, and has not for- 

* Mr. Curran alludes to the sentence of Mr. Muir, Palmer, &c, who bad 
been transported for sedition. 



Sm LIFE OF CUKHAN. 

gotten you : in truth, it is only that sentiment that troubles you with 
this worthless despatch ; but small as its value may be, it is worth 
at least what it costs you. I don't think these waters are doing me 
any good — I think they never did ; they bury my poor spirits in the^ 
earth. I consuited yesterday evening (indeed chiefly to put so ma-* 
ny moments to a technical death) our countryman B. a very obsti-| 
nate fellow : though I paid him for his affability, and his ' indeed,J 
I think so too, Mr. Shandy,' I could not work him into an admis- 
sion that I had any malady whatsoever, nor even any to hope| 
for by continuing the iatrigue with Mrs. Forty :* so I have a] 
notion of striking my tent, and taking a position behind the] 
Trent, at Donington.t During my stay here I have fallen in- 
to some pleasant female society ; but such society can be enjoy-* 
ed only by those who are something at a tea-table or a ball. Tea 
always makes mc sleepless 5 and as to dancing, I tried three or 
four steps that were quite the cream of the thing in France at one- 
time, and which cost me something. I thought it might be the gait- 
ers that gave them a pip^jrly air ; but even after putting on my^ 
Islack silk stockings, and perusing them again before the glass, 
%vhich I put on the ground for the purpose of an exact review, I 
found the edition was toostale for republication. 

" The cover of this contains a list of all the politicians now in 
Cheltenham, and therefore you must see that I am out of work as 
well for my head as my heels. Even the newspapers seem so 
parched by the heat of the season, which is extreme, as to hare 
lost all vegetation. In short, I have made no progress in anything 
except in marketing, and I fancy I can cast a glance upon a shoul- 
der of Welsh mutton with all the careless indecision of an unresolv- 
ed purchaser, and yet with the eye of a master ; so I have contrived 
to have two or three at five o'clock, except when I dine abroad, 
which I don't much like to do. 

'' If you remember our last political speculations, you know all 
that is to be known ; and that all being just nothing, you cannot 
well forget it. The smoke is thickest at the corners farthest from 

* The person who dispensed the waters at Cheltenham. Some extracts 
from an unfinished poem, addressed by Mr. Curran to this lady, will be 
Courid at the end of the volume. > 

t,Tbe seat of Lord Moira. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 319 

the chimney, and therefore near the fire we see a little more distinct- 
ly ;* but as things appear to me, I see not a single ticRet in the 
wheel that may not be drawn a blank, poor Paddy's not excepted. To 
go back to the fire — each party has the bellows hard at work, but I 
strongly suspect that each of them does more to blind their rivals, 
and themselves too, by blowing the ashes about, than they do in 
coaxing or cherishing the blaze for the comfort or benefit of their 
©wn shins. Therefore, my dear Peter, though we have not the gift 
of prophecy, we have at least the privilege of praying. There is 
no act of parliament that takes away the right of preferring a pe- 
tition to heaven ; and therefore, while it yet is lawful, I pray that all 
may end well, and that we may have an happy escape from knaves 
and fools. In that hope there is nothing either popish or seditious. 
To- morrow I go to Gloucester, to the music-meeting, and then I 
think Mrs. Forty and I shall take the embrace of an eternal adieu. 
Do not forget me to all our dear friends about you, and assure them 
that, however kindly they may remember me, I am not, as far as 
grateful recollection can go, in their debt. God grant we may all 
meet again in comfort here, or in glory somewhere else. 
" Yours, dear Peter, 

n Very truly yours, 

« JOHN P. CURRAN.^' 

TO RICHARD HETHERINGTON, ESQ.t DUBLIN 

" London, 18.11. 

" DEAR DICK, 

" I write merely to say that I am alive. Never any thing 
so dull as this place ; I shall soon steer towards you. You must 
know. I have been requested by a great sculptor to sit for him, and 
we are now employed in making a most beautiful head in mud, 

* This familiar image, almost similarly applied, was the subject of some 
perplexity to Dr. Johnson. — " Roscommon, foreseeing- that some violent 
concussion of the state was at hand, purposed to retire to Ron^e, alleging, 
that it was best to sit near the chimney when the chamber smoked, a sentence 
of which the application seems not very clear," — Life of Roscommon- 

t This gentleman held the situation of deputy keeper of the Rolls under 
Mr. Curran ; all of whose letters in his posscs^sion he has kindly communi- 
cated for insertion in this work. 



320 ^^^^ ^^F CURRAN. 

which is to be the model for a piece of immortal Parian marble. 
Is that a small style of going, Dick? Having now disposed of what 
was most important, we come to smaller affairs — politics and war. 
Wellington has been obliged to give up Rodrigo, and retire west- 
ward ; I suppose to eat his Christmas pies at his old quarters iti 
Torres Vedras, to which every hundred pounds that is sent to him 
costs only one hundred and forty pounds here. As to politics, they 
seem quite relinquished by every one : nobody expects any male- 
rial change of men or measures ; nor in truth do I see any thing in 
the present state of things that can't be done as well by one set as 
another. I have little doubt that Perceval is as warlike a hero as 
Grenville, and just as capable of simplifying our government to 
the hangman and the taxgatherer. — I am just interrupted ; so, God 
bless you. 

" J. P. CURRAN." 

TO THE SAME. 

"Holland House, 1811. 



II 



DEAR DICK, 

" The allurement of a frank gives you this. Here 
I am, much better I think—all lonely. Burton here for a week — 
almost every body else away. I am scarcely sorry for having 
come, one gets out of print ; however, I have scarcely to complain, 
I find myself quite a proof copy; Dear Dick, a man loves to be 
cockered a little ; and certainly I am not stinted here.. I suspect 
it is all affectation when I talk cheaply of the great and the grand ; 
for instance, T went to pay my devoirs to Lady D — , who was very- 
kind : also to Lady A — , who was vastly gracious; also Godwin, 
as also Lord Holland. To-morrow 1 shall think of Denis O'Bryen 
and the Duke of Sussex ; 'twill be well if I don't forget you and the 
bill, while I remember 

" J. P. C." 

" Some more lies from the continent :•— another victory-^-three 
legs of Bonaparte shot away, the fourth foot very precarious. I 
teallj suspect that you have been here ineog. and bit every boclj j 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 32| 

lor they will believe nothing, oven though authenticated by the 
most respectable letters from Gotlingen. Farewell. 

" J. P. CURRAN." 

TO THE SAME. 

" London, October 12, ITU. 

•' DEAR DICK, 

" I look forward to heing very domestic for the win- 
ter. I feel my habits and feelings much upon the change : it puts 
me in mind of a couple of bad verses of my own growth, 

And the long train of joys that charm'd before, 
Stripp'd of their borrow'd plumage, charm no more. 

I am weak enough to indulge in a conceited contrition for having 
done nothing, and the peretential purpose of doing something be- 
fore I die. God help us ! how poor the vanity that self accuses us 
of wasting funds that never existed, and draws for compensation 
upon the time that we are not destined to see ! or upon efforts that 
we have not strength to make ! You will think it odd that here in 
London I should be very studious ; but so it has been. I have 
been always prone to metaphysical and theological subjects, though 
I well know the uncertainty and fruitlessness of such researches ; 
however, I think to call another cause, and adjourn that, till I go 
thither where all must be plain and clear — where the evidence 
must be solid, and the judgment infallible. 

" I have been only at one play, and that in company with the 
author, Moore. I sleep three or four nights in the week in the 
country ; so that in Ireland I look to be very good — like an old 
bachelor who proposes to marry, and take the benefit of an insol- 
vent act. 

" There is still no news here — people seem almost sick of con- 
jecturing. As to my part, if I have any opinion, it is that a 
change would be only partial. The public undoubtedly have no 
enthusiasm for the outs, and Perceval unquestionably has risen 
much. In the City they think him a man of probity and of busi- 
jaess, which they think much better than high and lofty tumbling. 

41 



322 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

As to our miserable questions, they are not half so interesting as the 
broils in the Caraccas. What a test of the Union ! And what a 
proof of the apathy of this blind and insolent country ! They af- 
fect to think it glorious to struggle to the last shilling of their 
money, and the last drop of our blood, rather than submit their 
property and persons to the capricious will of France ; and yet 
that is precisely the power they are exercising over us — the modest 
authority of sending over to us laws, like boots and shoes ready 
made for exportation, without once condescending to take our 
measure, or ask whether or where they pinch us, 
" But enough, I think, of religion and politics. 

« J. P. C." 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 333 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Mr. Curran is invited to stand for the borough of Newry— Speech to the 
electors— Letter to Sir J. Swinburne— Letter on Irish affairs to H. R. H. 
the Duke of Sussex. 

From the period of Mr. Curran's elevation to the bench, his 
friends had been very desirous to see him a member of ihe British 
parliament. Independent of the service which they expected that 
his zeal and talents might render to Ireland, there mingled with 
their feelings on this subject a sentiment of national pride. His 
parliamentary abilities they considered as having been greatly un- 
derrated ; notwithstanding the extensive circulation of his reported 
speeches, the admiration they had met in England was cold in com- 
parison to the enthusiastic applause which their delivery had ex- 
cited at home. They were therefore anxious that he should have 
an opportunity, before age or death should render it impossible, of / 
justifying their preference, and confirming his own reputation by 
even a single display, before such an audience as the British senate, 
of those powers which his countrymen had so long been extolling 
as unrivalled. 

These reasons, particularly the sense of duty, were frequently 
urged upon him, but with little effect. The only question, upon 
which it seemed to him that he could be useful, was that of catholic 
emancipation ; and even here he could not venture to be sanguine. 
When he recollected that his illustrious friend Mr. Grattan, who 
had made that question almost the business of a long life, was still 
(though supported by so much of the most exalted rank and talent 
in the British empire) vainly exerting his splendid abilities to drive 
or shame the bigot from his post, Mr. Curran feared that the acces- 
sion of any strength that he possessed would prove of little value 
to the cause. The motives of personal vanity or ambition had 
still less influence. It is not surprising that he, who in the season 
of ardour and hope had been so negligent of fame, should continue 
equally indifferent, now thatthe.se incentives to action were passing 
or had passed away. 



324 ^^f'^ ^^' CURRAN. 

Such were Ins feelings (too full perhaps of despondency and in- 
dolence) when, upon the general election in 1812, the independent 
interest of the town of Newry proposed to elect him their member. 
A deputation from that borough having waited upon him for the 
purpose, he accepted the invitation, and repaired to Newry ; but 
after a contest of six days, perceiving that the strength of the other 
candidate (General Needham) left him no prospect of success, he 
declined any farther struggle.* Upon this occasion, Mr. Curran 
delivered a speech of considerable length. It was his last great 
public effort, and was characterised by the same energy and fancy, 
and the same spirit of patriotic enthusiasm, which reign in all his 
former productions. After stating to the electors of Newry the cir- 
cumstances under which he had been induced to appear among 
them, and the condition of the borough, which had baffled the exer- 
tions of his friends, Mr. Curran proceeded to impress upon his 

* The feelings with which Mr. Curran accepted the invitation appear in 
his answer. 

" TO THE W^ORTHY AND INDEPENDENT ELECTORS OF THE BOROUGH 

OF NEWRY. 

" Gentlemen— I have just received an address, signed by a number of 
highly respectable members of your ancient borough, inviting me to offer 
myself a candidate to represent your town in parliament. To be thought 
worthy of such a trust, at so awful a crisis as the present, and to receive such 
an invitation, unsolicited and unexpected, is an honour that 1 feel deeply and 
gratefully. 

*' Gentlemen, I need not trouble you with many words. You know my 
principles, you know my conduct heretofore— I am not a stranger coming 
forward to menace, or to buy you, in order that I may sell you ; nor do 1 
rest my pretension on any contrition for the past, nor any premeditated pro- 
mise that I will at some future period begin to act honestly by you. From 
the earliest period of m}"^ lite to see this ill-fated country retrieve from her 
sad condition of suffering and of shame has been the first and warmest wish 
of my heart, and warm it shall continue, till I myself am cold for ever. 
. " I know you will not impute it to a want of the most profound respect 
for you, when I say that I will not personally solicit the vote of any indi- 
vidual. 1 cannot run the risk of soliciting a suitor in the character of an 
elector - it would not benefit my judicial situation, and I think it would, 
diminish that credit, which suffrage above all suspicion of bias, ought to 
^ive to your representative. It will therefore be sufficient that I attend you 
m such time before the election as will enable me to know your farther 
pleasure. • 

"I have the honour to be, Gentlemen, with a full sense of your confidence 
and favour, 

" Your obedient servant, 

" JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN. 

** Stephen's Green, October 8, 1812." 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 325 

hearers that the long train of sufferings which Ireland had endured 
for centuries had originated in the dissension of her people, and 
that whatever of them remained could only be removed by mutual 
toleration. " Under this sad coalition of confederating dissensions, 
nursed and fomented by the policy of England, this devoted coun- 
try has continued to languish with small fluctuations of national 
destiny, from the invasion of the second Henry to the present time. 
And here let me be just while 1 am indignant; let me candidly 
own that to the noble examples of British virtue, to the splendid 
exertions of British courage, to their splendid sacrifices, am I pro- 
bably indebted for my feelings as an Irishman and my devotion to 
my country. They thought it madness to trust themselves to the 
influence of any foreign country ; they thought the circulation of 
the political blood could be carried on only by the action of the 
heart within the body, and could not be injected from without. 
Events have shown you that what they thought, was just ; and that 
what they did, was indispensable : they thought they ought to govern 
themselves — they thought that at every hazard they ought to make 
the effort — they thought it more eligible to perish than to fail ; and 
to the God of Heaven I pray that the authority of so splendid an 
example may not be lost upon Ireland." 

After describing the condition of Ireland subsequent to the revo- 
lution, Mr. Curran continued: — "At length, in 1782, a noble 
effort was made, and deathless ought to be the name of him* that 
made it, and deathless ought to be the gratitude of the country for 
which it was made — the independence of Ireland was acknowledged. 
Under this system of asserted independence, our progress in pros- 
perity was much more rapid than could have been expected, when 
we remember the conduct of a very leading noble person upon 
that occasion — never was a more generous mind or a purer heart- 
but his mind had more purity than strength. He had all that be- 
longed to taste, and courtesy, and refinement ; but the grand and 
the sublime of national reform were composed of colours too strong 
for his eye, and comprised an horizon too outstretched for his; 

* Mr. Grattan, 



326 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

vision.* The catholics of Ireland were in fact excluded from the 
asserted independence of their country. Thus far the result comes 
to this, that wherever perfect union is not found, complete redress 
must be^sought in vain. 

Passing on to the Union, Mr. Curran proceeded — '* The whole 
history of mankind records no instance of any hostile cabinet, per- 
haps even of any internal cabinet, actuated by the principles of 
honour or of shame. The Irish catholic was therefore taught to be- 
lieve, that if he surrendered his country he would cease to be a 
slave. The Irish protestant was cajoled into the belief, that if he 
concurred in the surrender, he would be placed upon the neck of 
an hostile faction. Wretched dupe ! — You might as well persuade 
the gaoler that he is less a prisoner than the captives he locks up, 
merely because he carries the key in his pocket. By that recipro- 
cal animosity, however, Ireland was surrendered ; the guilt of the 
surrender was most atrocious — the consequences of the crime most 
tremendous aad exemplary. We put ourselves into a condition of 
the most unqualified servitude — we sold our country, and we levied 
upon ourselves the price of the purchase — we gave up the right of 
disposing of our properties — we yielded to a foreign legislature to 
decide whether the funds necessary to their projects or their prof- 
ligacy should be extracted from us, or be furnished by themselves ; 
the consequence has been, that our scanty means have been squan- 
dered in her internal corruption as profusely as our best blood has 
been wasted in the madness of her aggressions, or the feeble folly 
of her resistance. Our debt has accordingly been increased more 
than tenfold — the common comforts of life have been vanishing — 
we are sinking into beggary — our poor people have been worried 
by cruel and unprincipled prosecutions, and the instruments of our 
government have been almost simplified into the tax-gatherer and 
the hangman. At length, after this long night of suffering, the 
morning star of our redemption cast its light upon us, the mist was 

* The person here alluded to was obviously the late Earl of Charlemont ; 
but thoua:b that nobleman originally opposed the claims of the Roman catho- 
lics, he had the honour in his latter years of rising above his early preju- 
dices ; he has also made Ireland amends for the delay, in having left a repre- 
sentative of his house, and of his more matured opinions, from whom all 
that his country can demand is that he may never change his j)res£nt prinpi- 
pies and co.uduct. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. Q^l 

dissolved, and all men perceived that those whom they had been 
blindly attacking in the dark were in reality their fellow suf- 
ferers and their friends. We have made a discovery of the grand 
principle in politics, that the tyrant is in every instance the creature 
of the slave — that he is a cowardly and a computing animal — and 
that in every instance he calculates between the expenditure to be 
made and the advantage to be acquired. And I therefore do not 
hesitate to say that if the wretched Island of man, that refugium 
peccatorum^ had sense and spirit to see the force of this truth, she 
could not be enslaved by the whole power of England. The op- 
pressor would see that the necessary expenditure in whips, and 
chains, and gibbets, would infinitely countervail the ultimate value 
of the acquisition ; and it is owing to the ignorance of this unques- 
tionable truth, that so much of this agitated globe has, in all ages, 
been crawled over by a Manx population. This discovery Ireland 
at last has made. The catholic claimed his rights — the protestant 
generously and nobly felt as he ought, and seconded the claim ; a 
silly government was driven to the despicable courage of cowardice, 
and resorted to the odious artillery of prosecutions — the expedi- 
ent failed : the question made its way to the discussion of the sen- 
ate — I will not tire you with the detail. An house of commons 
who, at least, represented themselves, perhaps afraid, perhaps 
ashamed of their employers, became unmanageable tools in the 
hands of such awkward artists, and were dissolved ; just as a beat- 
en gamester throws the cards into the fire in hopes in a new pack to 
find better fortune." 

A little farther on Mr. Curran, again adverting to the circum- 
stances of the election, was interrupted by the other candidate's 
agent : when that person was made to sit down, Mr. Curran re- 
sumed. " I do not wonder at having provoked interruption when 
I spoke of your borough. I told you that from this moment it is 
free. Never in my life have I so felt the spirit of tije people as 
among you 5 never have I so felt the throbs of returning life. I al- 
most forgot my own habitual estimate of my own small importance : 
1 almost thought it was owing to some energy within myself, when 
I was lifted and borne on upon the buoyant surge of popular sym- 
pathy and enthusiasm. I therefore again repeat it^ it is the moment 



328 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

of your i)ew birth unto righteousness. Your proved friends are 
high among you — your developed enemies are expunged for ever — 
your liberty has been taken from the grave, and if she is put back 
into the tomb, it can be only by your own parricide, and ^he mus 
be buried alive. 

" Ireland (said he, towards the conclusion of his address) can di 
Hiore for herself now than she has done for centuries heretofon 
She lay a helpless hulk upon the water ; but now, for the first tim< 
we are indebted to the protestant spirit for the delicious spectacle 
of seeing her equipped with masts, and sails, and compass, and 
helm ; at length she is sea-w^orthy. Whether she is to escape the 
tempest and gain the port is an event to be disposed of by the 
great ruler of the waters and the winds. If our voyage be prosper- 
ous, our success will be doubled by our unanimity *, but even if we 
iare doomed to sink, w^e shall sink w^ith honour. But am I over 
sanguine in counting our protestant allies ? Your own county gives 
yo« a cheering instance in a noble marquis,* retiring from the dis- 
sipation of an English court, making his. country his residence, and 
giving his first entrance into manhood to the cause of Ireland. It 
is not from any association of place that my mind is turned to the 
name of Moira — to name him is to recognise what your idolatry 
has given to him for so many years; but a late transaction calls for 
a word or two. I thought anxiously upon it at the time, and from 
t^at time to this, if he required to be raised, he must have been 
raised in public opinion by the event of that negotiation. t He saw 

* The Marquis of Downshire. 

t Mr. Curran had a few weeks before, in an equally public manner, dis- 
countenanced the angry feelings with which he found some of his country- 
men had regarded the conduct of his noble friend in the recent negoti?itions 
for a new aamiQistration. At a public dinner given in Dublin to the Bishop 
of Norwich by the friends of religious freedom, and attended by many, the 
most distinguiijiied for rank and talents in Ireland, Mr. Curran, in address- 
ing the meeting, enumerated the several illustrious persons in the empire, 
who supported the cause which they were that day celebrating : — " But," 
said he, " I have not yet mentioned the name, which I was delighted to see 
you were on the tiptoe of expecting, and which, in whatever order it might 
be mentioned, you had in your own minds placed in its natural station, at the 
bead of the list — the beloved child of Ireland — the ornament, and consoler, 
and intrepid defender of his country — the scholar of the camp — the philo- 
sopher of the senate — the exalted devotee of that high and unparlying 
honour, that will bend to no consideration of life, or death, or country, or 
even of fame ; that man who of ail others most distinctly sees into your 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 329 

that the public in either country could not have any hope from an 
arrangement, in which the first preliminary was a selfish scramble 
for patronage, that must have ended in a scramble for power; in 
which the first efforts of patriotism were for the surrender of mop- 
sticks in the palace ; to sink the head, and to irritate the man that 
tvore the crown, instead of making their first measure a restitution 
of representation to the people, who, if they were as strong as they 
ought to be, could have nothing to apprehend from the tinsel of a 
robe or the gilding of a sceptre. 

" Little remains for me to add to what I have already said. I said 
you should consider how you ought to act — I will give you my 
humble idea upon that point. Do not exhaust the resources of your 
spirit by idle anger or idle disgwst — forgive those that have voted 
against you here — they will not forgive themselves. I understand 
they are to be packed up in tumbrils with layers of salt between 
them, and carted to the election for the country, to appear again in 
patriotic support of the noble projector of the glories of Walcheren. 
Do not envy him the precious cargo of the raw materials of virtuous 
legislation^ — be assured all this is of use. 

" Let me remind you before I go of that precept, equally pro- 
found and beneficent, which the meek and modest author of our 
blessed religion left to the world : ' and one command I give you, 
f.hat you love one another.' Be assured that of this love the true 
spirit can be no other than probity and honour. The great analo- 
gies of the moral and the physical world are surprisingly coinci- 
dent ; you cannot glue two pieces of board together unless the joint 
be clean ; you cannot unite two men together, unless the cement 



character — your ardent, generous—do not be angry with me — your tender 
and excitable sensibility — your feather-springed disposability to affectionate 
and momentary jealousy, which evaporates in the breath that expresses it. 
He knows it well — he loves you for it— he knows the rapid contrition of its 
recoil, but he ought not to be wounded nor you humiliated by any formal 
ceremonial of that contrition. {Loud applause.) But 1 find I am not so bad 
a painter as I thought ; you have made it unnecessary for me to put the 
name over the picture. May 1 be permitted to add, that although I have 
not been altogether unhonoured by some condescending- notice from tliat 
illustrious and noble person, yet I am too proud to be swayed by any feeling 
which, if merely personal, must be despicable, and that it could not add a 
single pulsation to that energy of affection and respect, with which my heart 
clings to him as an Irishman.'' 

42 



330 ^^^E ^^" CURRAN. 

be virtue ; for vice can give no sanction to compact, slie can form 
no bond of affection. 

" And now, my friends, i bid you adieu, with a feeling at my 
heart that can never leave it, and which my tongue cannot attempt 
ihe abortive effort of expressing. If my deafch do not prevent it, 
we shall meet again in this- place. If you feel as kindly to me as I 
do to you, relinquish the attestation which I know you had reserved 
for my departure. Our enemy has, I think, received the mortal 
blow ; but though he reels, he has not fallen ; and we have seen 
too much upon a greater scale of the wretchedness of anticipated 
triumph. Let me therefore retire from among you in a way that 
becomes me and becomes you, uncheered by a single voice, and 
unaccompanied by a single man. May the blessing of God pre- 
serve you in the affection of one another." 

The following letters -contain Mr. Curran's farther views upon 
(he state of public affairs in Ireland at this period : 



*' TO SIR J. SWINBURNE. 



** SIR 



" I have just received the honour of your letter. I am very 
deeply, indeed, impressed by the honour of being thought by the 
committee not unworthy of the office of steward, at the meeting of 
the friends of religious freedom. 

" If there were no obstacle in my way, but what was within my 
own control, most promptly, and with pride and gratitude, would I 
obey so flattering a summons ; but the difficulty is what it does not 
belong to me to dispense with. The court of Chancery will be 
silting on the day of your meeting, and I could not be warranted in 
leaving my duty here, from any impulse, however strong, of per- 
sonal gratitude or respect. I cannot look forward to any probable 
state of the court, that can leave me to my own disposal ; but if such 
should occur, I shall certainly vvait upon you. I am, however, not 
a little consoled in the reflection, that my absence from such a scene 
ran be regretted only by myself, and that my presence could con- 
tribute little, or rather nothing, to the intended result. The sane- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 33J 

lion of the illustrious personages, who vouchsafe to patronise the 
meeting, must do much towards its object ; and much also must be 
effected by the high rank and character of others, who 1 make no 
doubt will be zealous in following such an example, when the pro- 
jects of intolerance are disclaimed by the authority of the enligh- 
tened and exalted ; and when the great mass of the people are per- 
mitted to see what cannot be difficult in so reflecting a nation as 
England, that the cause of tolerance is really that of justice, and 
prudence, and true Christianity, in which they themselves are as 
deeply interested as their fellow-subjects can be. It is not, J trust, 
too sanguine to hope that practical bigotry must be driven to take 
refuge in flight ; and that the empire may look forward to the adop- 
tion of such just and beneficent counsels as must ever compose the 
only certain basis of internal tranquillity, and of external safety. 
I know, Sir, you will perceive that I allude principally to this part 
of the empire. I have passed not a short life in it ; my notions 
respecting it are the fruit of long observation of it, both in and out 
of parliament ; and so deeply are these ideas graven upon my 
judgment, that upon a late occasion I was willing to forego every 
consideration of much labour passed, of advancing years, and de- 
clining health, and to undertake the duty of once more sitting in 
parliament. I could have no motive of ambition, or of party, or 
view to reputation ; I looked not to be an advocate for my country, 
but 1 did venture to hope that a man so perfectly removed from all 
temptation to partiality, and with so much opportunity of knowl- 
edge, might be received as not an incredible witness, in point of 
fact, for this afflicted island. And from the discharge of so sacred 
a duty, I thought it would have been most unworthy to affect to ex* 
cuse myself upon apy etiquette of office, when the law had declared 
no incompatibility between official and public duty. 1 did think, 
and I yet think, that if the real state of this country be fairly and 
fully impressed upon the parliament and the public, it must appear 
to demonstration, that the hopes and the fears of the two parts of 
the empire are one and the same ; that it is the critical moment in 
which every thing ought to be done to oppose the embankment of 
a consolidated nation to the hostile torrent, instead of leaving it 
€ven a chance of admission through the interstices of an incohcring 



333 i-if k: of curran. 

and porous population ; and that those high persons, who saw things 
a year ago in this point of view, and were then willing to derote 
themselves to the public service, may, upon further consideration, 
think that the obstacles which then prevented their intention ought 
not for ever to deprive their country of the benefit of their virtue or 
capacity to serve it. Such an event as I allude to, they may be 
assured, would have a most consoling and cheering effect upon Ire- 
land, because we should look with coniidence to their acting upon 
that noble and conciliating principle of religious freedom, which has 
raised your illustrious patron, and those who think as he does, so 
high in the reverence of all men ; they would be sure of retrieving 
Ireland from a state of suffering and peril ; they would be sure of 
finding a co-operation in every honest Irishman infinitely superior 
to the zeal of party, or of sect, and founded on the pure devotion of 
public duty and public spirit. And it would convey to the heart 
of a loyal and ardent people a conviction that they were yet of value 
in a quarter where their fondest hopes and affections had been fixed 
for years. But I fear my solicitude on this subject has led me to 
intrude farther than I had intended upon your attention. Permit 
me, therefore, only to request that you will be pleased to accept my 
cordial thanks for the courtesy of your communication, and to pre- 
sent my humble respects to the committee. 

" I have the honour to be. Sir, &c. 
« J. P. CURRAN." 



TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF SUSSEX. 

• ** I <:annot. Sir, express the pleasure with which I learn that 
the sanction of your illustrious rank and your great name are given 
to that noble principle of religious freedom, and that upon a ground 
perfectly distinct from all view whatsoever of political party. The 
relation in which you stand with respect to your country, and your 
august house, must remove all pretext for soiling our pure and 
modest religion, by blending it with the Sordid spirit of party ; or 
of advancing the projects of the latter, by an affected association 
with the former, in which heaven cannot be either interested or 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 33^ 

honoured, and in which the true principle of political wisdom and 
social virtue cannot fail to be degraded and depraved. Never, 
perhaps, have the fatal consequences of this monstrous union been 
more sadly proved and developed than in the late few years that we 
have passed ; and more especially in this ill-fated country. In 
England your dissenters were pressed sorely enough by disabling 
and excluding statutes; but still the sharpness of those legal mono- 
polies went rather against their interest than their honour. Still 
they were equal as Englishmen ; and though shut out, perhaps very 
unwisely and very unjustly, from a part, and certainly no incon- 
siderable part, of the constitutional precincts of their country, they 
still had the uncontrolable range of the residue as freely and 
proudly as any other portion of the land ; they had to complain of 
suffering rather than stigma or shame. With respect to other re- 
ligious descriptions of sects, very unworthy indeed to be classed 
with dissenters — the strange combinations of persons connected 
together by the fantastical adoption of wild and extravagant opin- 
ions, much easier to be named than to be understood, England 
seems to have acted with the policy that might be expected from a 
discreet and thinking nation. You have most judiciously cut off 
the supplies, that martyrdom would have given them in their meek 
and ardent campaign against the sobriety and decorum of true re- 
ligion. Your established clergy have stinted them in that food 
which refutation gives to folly; They have had too much good 
sense, and too much sound consideration for their sacred functions, 
to enter the lists of argument with these learned cobblers, and right 
reverend blacksmiths. However they may have been mortified by 
the scandal of their orgies, they have had forbearance enough to 
leave their diseases to cure themselves, and to consign them to the 
wholesome and cooling regimen of silent commiseration and inflexi- 
ble neglect. The law has followed the example of the church, and 
refused the honours of the pillory or the stake to the adventurous 
aspirants ; and to this concurrence in good temper and good sense 
may it be attributed, in a great degree at least, that these contra- 
band dealers and inventors of unheard-of forms of doctrine, and 
patterns of tenets, have not been still more successful in supersed- 
ing the good order and sobriety of the national faith and practice. 



334 l^IFE OF CURRAN. 

I should have hoped that this concurrence was founded on the adop- 
tion of a maxim, that forms the basis of that principle so fortunately- 
adopted by your Royal Highness, the invielabiiity of religious 
freedom. But deeply concerned am I to see, that however acted 
upon in England, it has not been pursued in Ireland with the same 
dignity and temper. In saying this I do not mean to impute abso- 
lutely bad intentions to any party, or to say that neither has been 
betrayeid into any step that may call for censure or regret ; but I do 
think that in our late, or rather our present, unhappy conflicts here, 
a manifest distinction might be made. The catholic was petition- 
ing for a repeal of certainly very afflicting grievances, and it would 
be only fair to make some allowance for the tone and phrase in 
which he might utter what came simply to this : — ' I am in bondage 
without having committed any crime. My degradation and suffer- 
ing are justified by the most cruel imputation on my character and 
honour, and I humbly pray to be set at liberty.' If a man were to 
utter such an appeal with insolence or outrage, 1 do not say he 
ought to be kindly heard ; but if he felt the right to freedom so 
coldly as to prefer his claim with an apathy that must freeze it, I 
should not hesitate to say, he ought not to be relieved ; he has not 
yet arrived at that impatience of slavery, without which he cannot 
be yet ripe for freedom. I cannot, therefore, avoid saying that the 
mere ardour of the catholics, in the pursuit of an object far more 
valuable than life, without which life could be of no value, was not 
a just ground for suspecting that their meeting to petition was a 
mere pretext to cover any other or any criminal design. The rank 
and property of the persons, which made them so firmly responsi- 
ble to the state, should, I think, have repelled such a suspicion, 
and particularly when sanctioned by so numerous a co-«peration of 
their protestant fellow-subjects. I do not say that the government 
might not have intended well, or that a most unhappy mistake was 
any other than an error of judgment; but I do think that when the 
subsequent conduct of the people had proved their innocence 
beyond all doubt, a milder and more conciliating conduct might 
have been adopted with equal dignity and wisdom. But I fear a 
province is a bad school for a statesman to learn that the essence 
f^f dignity consists much more in rest than in action. It has not 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 335 

laeen so, and the consequence has been a state of trouble and fer- 
mentation, such as 1 never before witnessed in Ireland. Crimina- 
tion and recrimination have gone to an extent on all sides, most 
deeply to be deplored by every man who wishes well to Ireland or 
the empire. The discussions of those unhappy questions have been 
carried on in the shape of criminal pi-osecutions ; of proceedings 
that never should be resorted to, except in cases of real guilt, and 
never as political measures of aspersion or counteraction- The 
result has been — No culpable intention whatsoever has been 
proved ; no project has been defeated ; the purity of the admin- 
istration of justice itself has been exposed by the unhappy indis- 
cretion of giving ground for actions, and the readiness of bringing 
forward prosecutions, in which every judgment and verdict for them 
has been a public calamity, by sinking them in the public opinion, 
and leading the people to entertain an idea, which I trust can never 
be true, that even the judicial authority may be degraded to an in- 
strumentality to the state. A man of any party but that of public 
tranquillity and safety would probably speak a language very dif- 
ferent from what I am holding to your Royal Highness. But my 
Blind is profoundly impressed with the actual suffering and awful 
possible danger of such a state of things, which is not at all diminish- 
ed by the real innocence of intention, which I am ready to concede 
to all parties. It is not the guilt of the parties, it is the fact of the 
conflict in which the peril consists. It was from this view of things, 
though not then so sadly matured as they are at present, that I was 
most anxious, a year ago, that the arrangement then proposed might 
take effect ; every aspect of things seemed to indicate such an event 
as most practicable, and most salutary. The resolution of the house 
ef commons seemed to point it out as a measure of inevitable ne- 
cessity : the exalted magnanimity of an illustrious personage relin- 
quishing every personal consideration, gave it complete facility, 
and that in a way the most endearing to the Irish people, by show- 
ing that his mind was perfectly untainted by bigotry. Strange in- 
deed would it be, if an individual of the first taste in England could 
be so tainted ; for what is taste but the moral instinct of an highly 
cultivated understanding ? The great talents and character of the 
noble persons concerned was a pledge to tl^e empire of what might 



336 LIFE OF CURRAN, 

be expected from the measure. It held out an hope of friendly ad- 
justment with America, instead of forcing her unnaturally into the 
ranks of our enemies, and driving her to waste her young blood in 
battle, instead of preserving it for growth ; instead of recollecting 
that she might be destined to be the cradle of an Hercules, who, 
even in his infancy, was doomed to crush the snakes of despotism, 
and whose full-grown labours might be reserved, by the extripation 
of monsters, to form a new system for freedom in the west, even 
after it had been banished, like the Americans themselves, from the 
east. It gave us at least an additional hope of an interval tQ 
breathe, by a peace with France ; an event made probable by the 
known opinions of those noble persons upon the subject ; and made 
still more probable by the incalculable addition to the actual force 
of the empire, in the perfect conciliation of Ireland, which they, 
hnd, I much fear, they alone, could be likely to effect ; but in these 
prospects we were destined to be disappointed. Upon the cause 
of this failure there was a variety of opinions, but there was a per- 
fect concurrence in the feeling, that it was a great misfortune to 
this nation : it doomed us to a continuance of disquiet, and an in- 
crease of burdens and of dangers ; yet we did not hastily give up 
the hope that the difficulties might be yet got over. Nor can I now 
conceive how it is possible for those noble persons to allow the 
weight of a feather to those difficulties, when they see that every 
event that has happened from that hour to this is flung into the op* 
posite scale, and is a call upon them to come forward and do their 
duty to their country. 

" As an Irishman I own my heart sunk when all hope was at aa 
end of seeing our favourite countryman* return to his native land, 
bearing the olive branch 5 the only man who seemed peculiarly 
designated for the great work of conciliation ; but even from the 
lip the cup has been dashed — the grating upon the mountain of 
Ararat was a delusive omen of the subsiding of the waters ; and our 
miserable ark is still tossed, not upon a sinking but a rising and 
more angry flood. My own concern, at that time, did not spring 
from any personal bad opinion of the ministers: I gave tbem tlienj 

"^ The Earl of Moira^ 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 337 

and 1 give them now, full credit for perfect good intention. Indeed, 
I can scarcely conceive the possibility of a public man's having the 
heart not to intend most conscientiously for the best ; but I could 
not avoid seeing that the vote of the house was a sort of presentment 
against them by the grand inquest of the nation ; and that the readi- 
ness of their master to dismiss them was a full confirmation of the 
public opinion, that it was a blight under which, if they did not die, 
they must dwindle 5 and that their acts and their language could 
not but correspond with a diminished stature. They have verified 
their sad foreboding, peculiarly with respect to America and to 
Ireland ; their tone and style has been undignified, peevish, and 
exasperating, sophisticated and. insulting. What else have been 
their orders in council ? ' The French are abusing your rights on 
the sea, we will retaliate by abusing them also : — the highwayman 
robs you of half your property, we will retaliate upon the highway- 
man by robbing you of the other half.' But this is a subject, per- 
haps, beyond my depth, and upon which my reasonings may be 
partial. There are many sad analogies that give us a deep and 
tender interest in the fate of that country. We cannot forget the 
fresh and daily increasing ties that bind us to them as brothers, or 
children, or kindred. An American war can never be popular in 
Ireland ; and the same causes that make it impossible for us to be 
their enemies, make it improper to be their judges. My mind, 
therefore, returns to home, the natural scene of every man's imme- 
diate solicitude. Upon this subject, to almost any other person 
than your Royal Highness, I should have much to say. To you, 
Sir, I know how absurd it would be to affect to give information. 
The feeling and the splendid part which you have been pleased to 
take in our interests and our sufferings proves to us, not only how 
perfect a knowledge of them you possess, but also how much a pa- 
tient and impartial judgment can contract questions which blind- 
ness and passion had dilated and perplexed, and to what a salutary 
degree you have been successful in simplifying the real objects to 
which the attention of the two countries ought to be confined. 
Any longer trespass upon your Royal Highness' patience can go 
no further, therefore, than very passingly to advert to the progress 
which I hope has been made in the happy work of conciliation. 



338 LIFE OF CUR RAN. 

" I think the good sense of England must now see, that the 
habits of reasoning and acting in Ireland are not to be judged by 
the interested and distorted misrepresentations that have been made 
of this country during centuries past. I understand with pleasure 
that those historical topics of abuse, which caught the public atten- 
tion for some time, are now spurned or laughed at, as the venemous 
and silly effusions of reading without learning, or learning without 
knowledge ; the real heads of inquiry are now plain. 1 know some 
weight was once given to the distinction, that mere exclusion was 
not privation. 1 believe there is now no rational man who does 
not see, that when it is justified upon the most degrading imputa- 
tions, it is the bitterest of all privations, because in the same mo- 
ment it takes away the privilege of the subject and the character of 
the man. 

" It has been said, ' it is dangerous to give power to the catholics 
as long as this objection was undefined.' This acted upon the 
nerves of, I am sure, many good men ; but it could not but cease to 
do so, when they reflected that nothing like power was sought or 
intended to be given. Mere admissibility is nothing like power ; 
mere admissibility can no more make a catholic a ganger than it 
can make him a king. I am admissible to be Lord Chancellor of 
England ; but would not any man in his senses imagine I had 
escaped from Bedlam if I called such admissibility by the name of 
power? It was said, that emancipation would lead to attempts 
upon our establishments. It is not surely difficult to see that es- 
tablishments can be altered or destroyed only bylaw or by force. 

" As to law, the danger comes exactly to this ; whether a few 
catholic members could succeed in making proselytes of king, 
lords, and commons, so as to subvert the prot^stant church.^ I con- 
fess. Sir, that is not my opinion of our catholic gentry ; if they be- 
came senators 1 suspect their ambition would have very little to do 
with religion, and that they would be seen going forth with the 
minister of the day, as well as their protestant brethren, in the 
mildest spirit of patriotic toleration. 

" As to brutal force, I can't see that admissibility to sit in the 
bouse of commons could be an inducement with any man to burn it. 
I cannot comprehend how giving men those interests in the state, 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 339 

without which no state can have any real value in their eyes, can 
increase their wish any more than their power to destroy it. I have 
heard of common sailors making off with the ship and cargo, but 
never of the proprietor joining in such an act. I never heard even 
of an Irish gentleman robbing himself and running away. If they 
are then asked — what do we solicit, and what can they give us.^ I 
cannot doubt that a generous nation will feel no little pain in being 
obliged to answer — ' We cannot give you power, nor place, nor 
wealth ; we cannot undo the sad consequences of continued oppres- 
sion ; we cannot restore you in a moment to national health ; the 
most we can do is to remove the actual malady in which you have 
been so long consumed; and to put you into a slate of possible 
convalescence, in which the progress, at the best, must be hectical 
and tardy.' 

" I know the hopes of some men are damped by the petitions 
against us. My hope is, that they are favourable to us ; when the 
motives and the means of procuring them are considered (and they 
cannot be unknown) they cannot fail of kindling a condign detesta- 
tion of those who can resort, for any human object, to such obdurate 
and remorseless guilt, as that of exciting man against man : of 
loosening those bonds that should bind the subject to the state, and 
poisoning the sources of that christian benevolence that ought to 
be the consolation of nations under those sufferings with which it 
has pleased Providence to permit almost the whole civilized world 
to be afflicted ; nor can I deem it possible that so just a detestation 
of the oppression should not lead to a proportional sympathy for 
the sufferers. As to the petitions from ourselves, we know they 
are the natural consequences of our condition; they are much 
stronger proofs of deplorable prostration than of real malice; and 
happy is it for the quiet of Ireland, that they are so considered. 
When Verres was accused for his frightful mai-administration in 
Sicily, a counter-petition was obtained ; and if I forget not, at the 
head of the deputation who came to implore that no mercy should 
be extended to him, was advancing to the senate, an illustrious 
Sicilian, who had himself been the most distinguished victim of 
what authority may perpetrate in a province. I cannot imagine 
that the display of such a spectacle could do injury to the cause of 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 

^the unSrtunat^upplicants ; nor can I think, that if the msr^atl 
lie were now put upon his trial before an impartial tribunal of the" 
English nation, his accusation weighed against his defence, his 
friends against his enemies, his conduct against his treatment; I 
cannot doubt that in such a situation, his character and claims would 
be so felt, that he might boldly say, ' I would to God that not only 
you, but all those that hear me this day, were both, almost and al- 
together such as I am, except these bonds.' I cannot, sir, in regard 
to the duty of perfect candor which I owe to your Royal Highness, 
avoid saying that the wild spirit of aggression which of late time 
has raved among us, has miserably reduced the respect in which 
every good government cannot fail to be held. These contests for 
dignity, without doubt, have been most disastrous. Alas, sir, I 
much fear that dignity is a robe which he, that will box for it, must 
lay aside during the conflict, and there is great risk that when he 
has been soundly threshed, he may find, like Strap, that it has been 
taken away during the battle by the honest gentleman who under- 
took to keep it. 

" But, sir, the baleful effects of this violence cannot stop here. 
It is too visible that manners, and morals too, must become feroci- 
ated ; so that there can be no doubt, that if good sense and feeling 
shall not make the edge of authority more blunt, necessity must 
soon make it sharper even than it is. If the rider will not sit quietly 
on his saddle, but will hold his seat by grappling the sides of the 
animal v.'ith his spurs, he cannot avoid changing to a bridle of no 
ordinary force. No other way can remain for restraining the mad- 
ness he provokes. This, sir, in my conscience I am convinced is 
the state of this country : things cannot stay as they are ; temporiz- 
ing palliatives will not avail ; it will answer no end to draw upon 
our great grandsons in favour of the great grandsons of the catho- 
lics, for liberty to be granted in the course of the next century. 

" Mean time, for I more than feel how much I have passed the 
limits, I cannot butliope the best effects from the principle of reli- 
gious freedom, which you are pleased to protect, and of which you 
will be so powerful a patron, and so bright an example. 

" Be pleased, sir, to accept my hunible thanks for your condes- 
cending wish, .that 1 should have the honour of being present at the 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 341 

meeting of the friends of such a principle ; as I find it is not to be 
immediate, I do not altogether give up the hope of being present, 
but, present or absent, it will have my most devout prayers for its 
success. I have the honour, sir, to be, with the most profound 
sense of attachment and respect, 

'^ Your Royal Highness' dutiful servant, 

" J. P. C." 



342 tlFE OF eURRAN. 



CHAPTER XVn. 

Mr. Currants health declines— Letters to Mr. Hetherington— Resignatten of 
his judicial office — Letters from London to Mr. Lube— Letters from Paris 
to the same — His last illness and death. 

In the beginning of 1813, the declining condition of Mr. Curran's 
health obliged him to meditate the resignation of his judicial office. 
While he was in London in the month of April of that year, he suf- 
fered a severe attack of inflammation in his chest. His illness, 
though by no means dangerous, was a subject of considerable alarm 
to his mind, in consequence of an old but unfounded opinion that 
his lungs were naturally weak ; a mistake into which he had been 
led from confounding the temporary hoarseness and exhaustion 
which usually followed every great exertion in public speaking 
with a constitutional debility of that organ. There is something 
characteristic in his manner of announcing his illness upon this oc- 
casion to his friend in Dublin. 

« TO R. HETHERINGTON, ESQ. 

" DEAR DICK, 

" Really I think rather an escape— I have been con- 
fined to my bed these ten days ; a violent attack on my breast — 
lungs not touched — better now, but very low and weak. I can't 
say with certainty when I can set out. Will you let Mr. Lock- 
wood (or if he is not there, the Chancellor) know my situation ; a 
wanton premature effort might kill me. 

•' J, P. C." 



" TO THE SAME. 



" DEAR DICK, 



" I had hoped a quicker recovery, but the fit was 
most severe. I thought to have put myself into a chaise to-morrow, 
but the physicians says it might be death, unless deferred some 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 348 

days longer. The malady was upon the breast ; I think I caught 
it by walking from Kensington — the morning was snowy and the 
wind east. I had not even gone to a play but once — I am most 
uneasy at this absence from court, however involuntary. I have 
written to Lord Manners. I have no news; nothing could be 
kinder, or more general than the flattering reception 1 have met. 
Still I am not acting like a dying man. Surely I could not prepare 
to dance out of the world to a grand forte -piano ; yet they talk of 
such a thing. The town is also full of rumours of a silver tea-pot, 
&c. &c.* What can all this mean? Doesn't it show a regard for 
our executors ? My best regards to all about you, and with you. 

" J. P. C' 

Mr. Curran was in a little time so far recovered as to be able to 
resume his judicial functions. In the long vacation he returned as 
usual to England, from which he writes as follows. 

" TO RICHARD HETHERINGTON, ESQ. DUBLIN. 

*' Cheltenham, Septembers, 1813. 

" DEAR DICK, 

" You ought to have heard from me before ; I have 
been a truant; however, in fact 1 had little to say : I am here now 
ten days. I took the waters ; as usual, they bore down whatever 
spirits I had to lose. Yesterday I went to the doctor; he told me 
I had taken them wrong and was wrong in taking them ; that I had 
no symptom of any disease whatever; he mentioned also, in confi- 
dence, that notice had been taken of my intimacy with Mrs. Forty ; 
that there were some ladies not far from the well, strangers alto- 
gether to my poor dear, in whom religion had turned from milk, 
and soured into vinegar; who had little hope of being talked ill of 
themselves, and who made it a moral duty to slide themselves in 
upon the market jury of every character, and give a verdict against 
them upon their own knowledge ; particularly if there were any 

* When Mr. Curran was confined to his bed and suffering considerable 
pain, he could not abstain from the same playfulness. His medical atten- 
dant having observed one morning, that he found he coughed with more 
diflSculty than on the preceding evening — '* That's very surprising^," replied 
ibe patient, *' for I have been practising all night." ^ 



^ 



344 LIFE OB^ CURRAN. 

circumstance that made it an act of common mercy, in those can- 
ters of slanderous litanies, to be silent or merciful. ' My dear sir,' 
said he, * let not women complain of their injuries from men, when 
they are such odious beasts in devouring one another.' In truth, 
my dear Dick, it is frightful to see how little they can spare their 
friends, when they can make them the pretexts for venting their in- 
fernal malice. I confess it has added to my sickness of heart 
against that country,* of which I have really deserved so much. 

" You can scarcely believe what a difference I find here — court- 
ed and cherished by strangers 5 I assure you the question of celeb- 
rity between the royal tiger and me is not quite decided. The 
change of scene is amusing, so is the diversity of characters ; there 
is a moral benefit in the change of scene ; you look back to the 
niche you filled and you see it not : how minute then must be the 
little thing that filled it? Here too every body is as intimate with 
me as I permit. I really begin to think that the best tenure of 
earthly attachment is tenancy at will. You have the use of the 
soil, and the way-going crop ; then nothing you plant shoots so 
deeply but you may remove it without injury to the soil or to itself. 
If affections strike their roots far into the heart, they cannot be 
pulled up without laceration and blood. I am not without an idea 
of cutting you altogether : I could easily get into parliament and on 
my own terms, but the object would not justify a purchase j and I 
need not tell you, I would not submit to restrictions. 

" You will be surprised when I tell you that I have the highest 
authority for knov/ing that the silly malice of the Castle has not 
had the smallest impression on a certain high quarter. As I have 
jilted Mrs. Forty, my head is getting better, and I shall try and 
write. I may as well stay here sometime as any where else : 1 am 
afraid of London ; however, I can't but pay a visit to the Duke of 
Sussex. Will you enclose " Wagram"t to Mr. Reeves, and add 

* Ireland : the censorious ladies in question were his countrywomen, 
t The title of the following" lines composed by Mr. Curran. 

COUNT ROLLO, TO HIS SERENE HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WAGRAM. 

Wag, Prince of Wagram, prince of dogs, 
Of man the friend, the foe of hogs. 
When fast'ning on the flapping lug, 
The more they squeak, the more you tug ; 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 345 

my respects, and request that he will have the goodness to forward 
it to me to Cheltenham. The post is just going out — write to me 

And sweet to alderman as custard, 
You cranch the gristle without mustard. 

The justice grave, that looks so big, 
With midnight brow, and snowy wig. 
Say, Wagram, can the sage compare 
His artful with thy artless hair ? 
The locks that hireling hands can spread 
For lucre vile on viler head. 
With those that heaven on thine can shed ? 
Fain would he look as if he thought, 
' But if he thinks, he thinks of nought 

But ill-used power, or un-used pelf. 
Or fame known only to himself. 
Oh ! how his vanity might brag 
Were he but fair and just as Wag. 
The courtier beast on hinder legs. 
Like vou that fawns, like you that begs; 
But, Wag, can he compare with you 
For faithful love, and friendship true ? 
Let but the patron feel the blast 
Of veering rate, how soon is past 
The felon faith, the slip-knot vow ; 
Where is the perjur'd courtier now ? 
Has the poor patron raised one foe 
Whose ruthless rage would crush him low ? 
Go seek, and you'll be sure to find 
Th' apostate parasite combined 
With that one foe, and prompt to lend 
His aid to sink a sinking friend ; 
Oh Wag, how different far from thee, 
Should sun-tide smiles thy mistress flee. 
Should wayward fortune learn to frown. 
And all she promised once disown ; 
Tho' every hope became a rag. 
Still thouM'st be faithful, honest Wag. 
Behold the bigot's fiery face ! 
His heart of gall, his leer of grace, 
That grace by which to him is given 
To scan the politics of heav n ; 
O'er man to wave the vengeful rod, 
And hate him for the love of God ; 
That boasts from heav'n the mystic spell. 
But reads it by a light from hell. 
No generous science lights his mind ; 
There all is shapeless -all is blind, 
No social love his bosom warms. 
There pow'r alone, or interest charms, 
Each wild extreme by turns he owns, 
He crawls a slave, a tyrant frowns ; 
As still by changing winds he's driven, 
Abhorred by man -accursed by heav'n. 
Well pleased, O Wag, I turn to thee. 
From ail those abject horrors free. 

44 



346 ^-IFE OF CURRAN. 

by return ; best regards to the hill. 1 begin to think that ' com- 
pliments to all inquiring friends^ generally dwindles into a sine- 
cure. What of the poor Priory ? we have passed some happy and 
innocent days there. God bless you, dear Dick, prays v'ery sin- 
cerely yours. 

" J. P. C, 

" P. S. These senators are in bed, or this should pass more free 
than I have ever been able to do." 



TO THE SAME. 

" DEAR DICK, 

" My last was in spleen and haste ; this is a post- 
script, I can scarcely add what 1 should have said, because I for- 
get what I did say ; no doubt I was too vain not to brag of the 
civility I have met, and consequently of the good taste of every 
body. Did I say a-ny thing of the Italian countess, or the French 
count her uncle, whose legs and thighs are turned into grasshopper 
springs by a canister-shot at the battle of Novi.^ She talks of 
going westward ; as Irish scandal does not talk Italian, and as she 
can't speak English, she may be safe enough, particularly with the 

Perhaps thy intellectual span 

Is somewhat less than that of man ; 

Thy gifts like his are not abused, 

Thy gifts are ever fairly used. 

What nature orders you obey, 

Nor ever deviate from her way, 

Alas ! how steadier far than I, 

You work, you eat, j^ou sleep, you die. 

Another word I've just to say, 
And then the Muse gets holiday ; 
There's mistress, and there's Master Dick, 
Will spend with me their Christmas week, 
And Betty B. of virgin fame, 
And Marg'retsay they'll do the same. 
But what avails what they may do ? 
It can't be Christmas without you. 

Come, then, we'll form our Christmas plan^ 
In mutual kindness on we'll jog. 

You'll grieve that I was born a man, 
And I'll rejoice that you're a dog. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 347 

assistance of a Venetian blind ! Dear Dick, God help us ! 1 find 
I am fast recovering from the waters ; I think I'll drink no more of 
ihem ; my nerves are much more composed, and my spirits, though 
far from good, are more quiet. Why may not the wretch of to- 
morrow be happy to-day? I am not much inclined to abstract 
optimism, but I often think Pope was right when he said, that 
* whatever is, is right,' though he was perhaps too shallow a moralist 
to know, not why he thought so, but why he said so ; probably 
'twas like your own poetry, he made the ends of the lines jingle 
for the sake of the rhyme. 

" Apropos of jingle. 1 forgot, ] believe, to beg of you to send 
me two copies of ' Oh Sleep !' 1 wrote it for Braham. I suppose 
the air not correctly.* 

" Did I beg of you to see and to direct James as to the erections 
at the barn ? don't forget it ; because, perhaps, I may see the Priory 
once again. I dreamt last night of your four-horse stable, and I 
was glad to find all well. 

" You can scarcely believe what a good humoured compromise 
I am coming into with human malice, and folly, and unfixedness. 
By reducing my estimate of myself, every collateral circumstance 
sets out modestly on the journey of humility and good sense, from 
the sign of the Colossus to that of the Pigmy, where the apartments 
are large and ample for the lodger and his train, 

*T0 SLEEP. 

Sleep, awhile thy power suspending, 
Weigh not yet my eye-lid down, 

For Mem'ry, see ! with Eve attending, 
Claims a moment for her own. 

1 know her by her robe of mourning, 
I know her by her faded light ; 

When faithful with the gloom returning, 
She comes to bid a sad good-night. 

Oh ! let me here, with bosom swelling, 

While she sighs o'er time that's past ; 
Oh! let me weep, while she is telling 

Of joys that pme and pangs that last. 
And now, O sleep, while grief is streaming, 

Let thy balm sweet peace restore. 
While fearful hope through tears is beaming, 

Soothe to rest that wakes no more. 



548 ^^^^ <^F euRRAN. 

" Just as before, the post is on my heels ; Richard has only timt 
to put this in the office. 1 shall probably soon write more at leisure* 
Compliments at the hill: ditto repeated shaking the bottle* 

" J. P. C." 

" The Scotch indorser of this gave me my dinner yesterday 
champaigne and soda. He votes with the minister. I gave a \ec\ 
ture, and got glory for rebuking a silly fellow that tried to sing ai 
improper song in the presence of his son. * Thunders of ap^ 
plause.' '* 



« TO THE SAME. 

" Cheltenham. 
^^DEAR DICK, 

" I have not been well here — these old blue devils, I fear| 
iiave got a lease of me. I wonder the more at it, because 1 hav< 
been in a constant round of very kind and pleasant society. Toj- 
morrow Sir Frederick Faulkener and I set out for London. I don'l 
turn my face to the metropolis con amore, but the Duke of Sussex 
might not take it well if I did not call upon him---so I go, being a| 
once an humble friend and a patriot. Low as I have been mysell 
in spirits, I could not but be attracted with the style of society anc 
conversation here, particularly the talents and acquirements of fe^l 
males — I am sorry to say, few of them our countrywomen. The| 
vulgarity too and forwardness of some of our heroes quite terrible. 
On the whole, however, perhaps, Vm the better for the jaunt." 



Early in the following year, in consequence of the still declining 
condition of his health and spirits, Mr. Curran resigned his judi- 
cial situation. Upon which the following address was presented 
to him" by the Catholic Board : — 

" TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, 
" SIR, 

" The general board of the Catholics of Ireland feel it their 
duty to address you on your resignation of the high office to which 
jour talents were called, and the duties of which you have discharge 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 349 

ed with the courtesy of a gentleman ; the abilities of a lawyer; 
the dignity of a judge ; and the characteristic integrity which has 
ever distinguished you. Taking a review of a life devoted to the 
service of your country, and the cause and interest of public and 
private liberty, we shall ever hold in proud and grateful remem- 
brance the energy which you displayed in resisting oppression, 
and defending the rights of the subject and the constitution ; the in- 
dependent spirit with which you met the frowns and seductions of 
power ; the intrepidity with which you vindicated your insulted 
and maligned country, and the sacrifices which you made at the 
shrine of public virtue. The freedom and privileges of your pro* 
fession, so closely connected with those of the public, you upheld 
both at the bar and on the bench. The first flight of your juvenile 
genius was a noble and generous defence of an obscure, but res- 
pectable individual against a lawless assault of tyrannical power. 
You l^ve uniformly opposed that bigoted, that baneful policy, 
which impiously tries the principles of man by his religious creed. 
You have maintained the great and sound principle of religious 
liberty, A just, a liberal, and an enlightened mind abhors the per- 
nicious system of excluding from equal rights those who contribute 
equally to the support of the state with their property and their 
lives ; a system which sacrifices the liberty of the country to pro- 
tect the monopoly of a party, and which, by perpetuating division 
and discord, saps the foundation of all social intercourse. You, 
Sir, and the other illustrious advocates of Irish prosperity, are well 
aware that the total extinction of such a system is absolutely es- 
sential to the consolidation and permanence of the general strength 
of the empire. Permit us, therefore. Sir, to indulge our earnest 
hope, that your splendid talents, emerging from the eclipse of ju- 
dicial station, and reviving under that name which has attached the 
hearts of your countrymen, will again be exerted in the service of 
Ireland." 

&1R. curran's answer. 

" GENTLEMEN, 

" Be pleased to accept my warmest acknowledgments 
for this flattering mark of your approbation and regard. So far as 



350 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

honesty of intention can hold the place of desert, I can indulge 
even a proud feeling at this proof of your good opinion, because I 
have no secret consciousness that can blush while I receive it. I 
have early thought that the mere fact of birth imposes, by the au- 
thority of God, a loyalty to country, binding the conscience of man 
beyond the force of any technical allegiance, and still more devo- 
ted and excusable. To our unhappy country I know that this 
sentiment was little better than barren ; however, what I had I 
gave. I might have often sold her — I could not redeem her. I 
gave her the best sympathies of my heart, sometimes in tears, 
sometimes in indignation, sometimes in hope, but oftcner in des- 
pondence. I am repaid far beyond my claim ; for what reward 
can be more precious than the confidence and affection of those for 
whom we could not think any sacrifice too great? I am still far- 
ther repaid by seeing that we have arrived at a season that gives 
us so fair .a prospect of better days than we have passed. When 
i view these awful scenes that are daily marking the interposition 
of Providence in punishment or retribution, that teach rulers to re- 
flect, and nations to hope, I cannot yield to the infidelity of des* 
pair, nor bring myself to suppose that we are destined to be an ex- 
ception to the uniformity of divine justice, and that in Ireland alone 
the ways of God shall not, in his good time, be vindicated to man, 
but that we are to spend our valour and our blood in assisting to 
break the chains of every other nation, and in riveting our own ; 
and that when the most gallant of our countrymen return to us, la- 
den with glory and with shame, we are to behold them dragging 
about an odious fetter, with the cypress and the laurel intertwined. 
On the contrary, I feel myself cheered and consoled by those indi- 
cations, which inspire the strong hope that the end of our affliction is 
rapidly advancing, and that we shall soon be placed in a condition 
where we shall cease to be a reproach to the justice and wisdom 
of Great Britain. The calumnies of our enemies have been refu- 
ted, and have left no impression behind them, save a generous re- 
gret that thev could ever have been believed. It is with no ordi- 
nary feeling of condonation and respect that we should hail the 
awaking of a nation, formed to be illustrious, from the trance of a 
bigotry that cannot be refuted, because it does not reason ; that, 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 351 

like every other intoxication, stupifies while it inflames, and evapo- 
rates only by sleep. It becomes us to congratulate on the recovery 
without retrospect to the time it may have cost. Within the short 
limits even of a year, the spirit of a just and liberal policy has as- 
sumed a station that scarcely could be hoped from the growth of 
centuries. That wise country has learned to see us as we are ; to 
compare our sufferings with our merits and our claims ; and to feel 
that every kind and tender sympathy that speaks to the heart or 
head of a man in favour of his fellow-subjects is calling upon her 
to put an end to the paroxysms of that gaol fever which must for- 
ever ferment and fester in the imprisonment of a nation, and to do 
it in a way that shall attach while it redresses, and bind a blended 
empire in the bond of equal interest and reciprocal affection. We 
are asking for no restorative ; the legislature has none to give ; 
we ask only for what is perfectly in its power to bestow ; that de- 
obstruent which may enable the human creature, even by a slow- 
convalescence, to exert the povvers of his nature, and give effect, 
by the progression of his happiness and virtue, to the beneficence 
of that Being which could not have permanently designed him for 
the sufferings or the vices of a slave. In your anxiety for the hon- 
our of the bar, I cannot but see an auspicious omen of your near 
approach to the possession of such a treasure that deserves so high 
a protection. Short is the time that has passed since you could 
not have adverted to that subject without a mixture of shame and 
anguish ; but you can now resort to persons of your own religious 
persuasion for those great talents for whose purity you are so just- 
ly anxious. You are certainly right in thinking the independence 
of the bar the only unfailing safeguard of justice, and of that liberty 
without which justice is but a name. It is the equal protection of 
the people against the state, and of the state against the people. 
If Erskine had lived in the dark times of the second James, it might 
have saved his country from the pain of reading the events of those 
days, when the court could procure a bench, but the subject could 
not find a bar. It is with an emotion difficult to describe that I see 
how easily our hearts are betrayed into an exaggerated estimation 
of those we are disposed to love. You are pleased to bespeak the 
continuance of my poor efforts in the cause of Ireland. I cannot 



352 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

without regret reflect how feeble they would be ; but I am fully 
consoled in the idea, that they would be as unnecessary as ineffi« 
cient. It is still no more than justice to myself to say, that if an 
opportunity should occur, and God be pleased to let it be accom- 
panied by health, my most arde^it affections would soon find the 
channel in which they had flowed so long. A devoted attachment 
to our country can never expire but with my last breath. It is a 
sentiment that has been the companion of my life : and though it 
may have sometimes led to what you kindly call sacrifices, it has 
also given me the most invaluable consolation. And even when 
the scene shall come to a close, I trust that sentiment shall be the 
last to leave ine, and that I shall derive some consolation in the re- 
flection, that I have been a zealous, though an unprofitable, ser- 
vant." 

Shortly after his resignation he passed over to London, in order 
lO proceed to, and take a last look at, France, now once more ac- 
cessible from the fall of Napoleon. He addressed several letters 
from London and Paris to one of his intimate friends in Ireland.* 
Of these the following selection will be found to contain his opinions 
at large upon the interesting events that had lately passed, and 
upon the state of society in those rival capitals : — 

'< TO DENIS LUBE, ESQ. DUBLIN. 

" London, June 1814. 

^' Mr DEAR LUBE, 

" I am not many days in London ; yet am I as sick 
of it as ever I was of myself. No doubt it is not a favourable mo- 
ment for society ; politics spoil every thing ; it is a perpetual tissue 
of plots, cabals, low anxiety, and disappointment. Every thing 
I see disgusts and depresses me ; I look back at the streaming of 
biood for so many years ; and every thing every where relapsed 
into its former degradation. France rechained— Spain again sad- 

* Mr. D. Lube, of the Irish bar ; a gentleman of peculiarly estimable 
charactfTj in whom Mr, Curran reposed the most uabouaded confidencer. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 353 

died for the priests— and Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant, 
kneeling to receive the paltry rider : and what makes the idea the 
more cutting, her fate the work of her own ignorance and fury. — 
She has completely lost all sympathy here, and I see no prospect 
for her, except a vindictive oppression and an endlessly increasing 
taxation. God give us not happiness, but patience ! 

" I have fixed to set out for Paris on Tuesday with Mr. W. He 
is a clever man, pleasant, informed, up to every thing, can dis- 
count the bad spirits of a friend, and has undertaken all trouble. 
I don't go for society, it is a mere name ; but the thing is to be 
found nowhere, even in this chilly region. I question if it is 
much better in Paris. Here the parade is gross, and cold, and 
vulgar ; there it is, no doubt, more flippant, and the attitude more 
graceful; but in either place is not society equally a tyrant and a 
slave ? The judgment despises it, and the heart renounces it. — 
We seek it because we are idle, we are idle because we are silly ; 
the natural remedy is some social intercourse, of which a few drops 
would restore ; but we swallow the whole phial, and are sicker 
of the remedy than we were of the disease. We do not reflect that 
the variety of converse is found only with a very few, selected by 
our regard, and is ever lost in a promiscuous rabble, in whom we 
cannot have any real interest, and where all is monotony. We 
have had it some times at the Priory, notwithstanding the bias of 
the ball that still made it roll to a particular side. I have enjoyed it, 
not long since, for a few hours in a week with as small a number, 
where too there was no smartness, no wit, no pretty affectation, no 
repartee ; but where the heart will talk, the tongue may be silent — 
a look will be a sentence, and the shortest phrase a volume. No ; 
be assured if the fancy is not led astray, it is only in the coterie 
that the thirst of the animal being can be slacked, or the pure 
luxury and anodyne of his life be found. He is endeared and ex- 
alted by being surpassed ; he cannot be jealous of the w^ealth, how- 
ever greater than his, which is expended for his pleasure, and 
» nich in fact, he feels to be bis own. As well might an alderman 
become envious of the calapash in which his soul delights before 
the Lord. But we are forever mistaking the plumage for the bird : 
perhaps we are justly punished by seeking happiness where it is 

45 



354 I^IFE OF CURRAN. 

not given by nature to find it. Eight or ten lines back I looked 
at my watch ; I saw 'twas half past six, the hour at which dinner, 
with a friend or two, was to be precisely on the table. I went — 
was presented to half a dozen dial plates that I never saw before, 
and that looked as if they had never told the hour of the day. I 
sat gagged — stayed twenty minutes — came back to write, leaving 
Richard to bring me word if, between this and to-morrow, the 
miserable mess shall be flung into the trough. How complete a pic- 
ture this of glare without worth, and attitude without action. ' My 
temper,' to quote myself, ' and my dinner lost.' Can it have 
been the serious intention of Providence that aflfectation should 
obtain these triumphs over sense and comfort.'* and yet really my 
host is a very good fellow in the main. 

" 'Tis now half past seven— no Richard. I had just put on my 
hat to go to the next coffee-house, but 1 resolved to punish myself 
for the petty peevishness of being angry, because every one has 
not as much good sense as I think I have myself. I am now wish- 
ing there may be no dinner till ten, that I may have the glory of 
self-punishment — 

'Judico me cremarij 
in continuation — 

* Et cornbustus fui.'* 

"We sat down at eight, sixteen strong, but it had nothing of a 
coterie, I sat next a pleasantish sort of a lady ; but alas ! a look 
of attention is not a look of affiance : there are gracionsnesses that 
neither identify nor attract ; and as to the atmosphere that sport- 
ed on her dimples, 1 would just as soon have had a thimbleful of 

* Mr. Curran alludes to an anecdote related by Sir William Blackstone, 
in one of the notes to his Commentaries. In the reign of Henry the Sixth, 
the Chancellor of Oxford claimed the right of trying an action brouglit 
against himself; upon which occasion his counsej. Sergeant Rolfe, introdu- 
ced the following curious argument in support ofthe claim.— Jeo vous dif^f 
un fable. En ascun temps fuii un pape et avoit fait un grand offence, et te 
cardinals vindrent a luy et disoyent a luy *^ peccasti :^^ et il dit^ '•'■ judica 
me ;" et ils disoyent, " non possmnus, quia caput et ecclesice ; judica teip- 
SMm:" et Vapostol dit, "-judico me cremari,^' et fuit cornbustus; et apres 
fuit un sainct. Et in ceo cas il fuit son juge demene, et issint n'est pas in- 
convenient que un home soit juge demene.—Bla. Com. Book S^p. 299, 7iote, 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 355 

common air. After all, how rare the coincidences that conciliate 
affection and exclusive confidence ! how precarious I 

* For either 
He never shall find out fit mate, but such 
As some misfortune brings him, or mistake ; 
Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain. 

Or if she love, withheld 
By parents, or his happiest choice too late 
Shall meet already linked and wedlock-bound 
To a fell adversary, his hate or shame.' 

" Milton, you see, with all his rigour, was not insensible of these 
lachrym(B rerum. There is one thing that ought to make us hum- 
ble and patient. When we are close enough for the inspection of 
others, we soon find that ' life is eternal war with woe.' Many, 
too, are doomed to ' suffer alone ;' and, after all, would not a 
truly generous nature prefer the monopoly of its own ills rather 
than fling any part of them upon a kindred bosom t 

" You ask me about politics. Regarding myself, my answer 
is — I had no object in parliament except the catholic question, and 
that I fear is gone. Westminster will probably be a race of brib- 
ery, equally disgraceful and precarious.* Burdett's conduct has 
been quite that of a friend and a man ; he would have been most 
ardent, and what was to me most grateful, on a public ground. I 
dined with him yesterday ; at first the party was numerous — the 
masquerade, about ten, drained them down to three, my compag- 
non de voyage and myself; till one it was quite a coterie, with no 
wine , there's no playing on an instrument with many strings ; half 
of them form only base accompaniments. 

" I thought to have gone incog, to Paris, but my excellent friend, 
the Duke of Sussex, insisted on my taking a letter to Monsieur: 

* So now cocked hats, and swords, and laces, 
And servile bows and low grimaces : 
For what at court the lore of Pascal 
Weighed 'gainst tbecrouchings of a rascal ? 

* It was expected at this time that there would shortly be a vacancy in 
the representation for Westminster, in which event Mr. Curran had been 
encouraged to offer himself as a candidate, but he never entered warmly 
into the scheme. This is the political project to which he adverts more 
^ an once in his subsequent letters- 



3^6 itFE Oh CURRAN 

-•* As to my stay there, every where is to me nowhere ; therefore, 
if it depends on me, I shall drop off when I'm full, or Mr. W. will 
haul me along. If our friends have any wish, it ought to decide, 
and shall do so. I cannot endure to be conscious of any retalia- 
ting sulk in myself; and I know that heaven loveth the cheerful 
^iver. " Yours, &c. 

"J. P. C." 



TO THE SAME* 

*' London, June, 1814. 

" DEAR LUBE, 

" Just received your kind fragment, I cannot say I read 
it without some pain. When fortune deigns to favour, particular- 
ly if there is any port and dignity in her condescension, we are apt 
to feel any declination from the consistency of her kindness. If she 
has justly entitled herself to stand upon a high pedestal, she cannot 
sink into any pettiness without affliction to the votary, who may be 
loo apt to fear that there may have been blindness in what she 
withholds. 

Anne Howe* is an injudicious example of a woman of talents, 
favouring without much claim, inflicting without much cause, and 
diminishing the value of what she gives, and what would otherwise 
rise above all price, by the levity of an unequal tenor that takes 
away from her the splendid of her own uniform judgment in her 
own justification ; it lets down the giver, and abashes the taker. 
Our friends should not have m.ade a point so much beneath their 
region ; let them therefore review and correct. However, it 
should be ever the duty of gratitude, not to let even the breaking 
of a single string take away the merit of the residue of the octave, 
if that had given out all the luxury of harmony and feeling before 
that single key had lost its voice — but, perhaps too much of this. 

*' Since my arrival here my spirits have been wretchedly low : 
though treated with great kindness, I find nothing to my mind. I find 
heads without thinking, and hearts without strings, and a phrase- 

* This is a fictitious name. The subject of this part of the above letter 
was entirely of a private nature, and is alluded to wUh a studied obscurity. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 357 

alogy sailing in ballast — every one piping, but few dancing. Eng- 
land is not a place for society ; it is too cold, too vain, without 
pride enough to be humble, drowned in dull fantastical formality, 
vulgarised by rank without talent, and talent foolishly recommend- 
ing itself by weight rather than by fashion — a perpetual war be- 
tween the disappointed pretension of talent and the stupid over- 
weening of affected patronage ; means without enjoyment, pursuits 
without an object, and society without conversation or intercourse : 
perhaps they manage this better in France — a few days, I think, 
will enable me to decide. As to politics, I remain in opinion the 
same. In that object 1 probably would have succeeded ; I should 
have been strongly supported, but a conflict of corruption ! surely 
not to be thought of. How would it mortify the discerning pride 
of our friends, to see us decked and degraded in a mantle ! 

" So vilely purchased and so vilely wrqught !" 

and to find themselves disguising the pangs of wounded sympathy 
ill the forced semblance of gratulation. The advice of Longinus^ 
' consider how Homer would have expressed this idea,' applies 
eqwally to every thing. How would the adviser have advised? — 
how feel ? Will the ' promise so true,' * for ever to partake the 
joy and the wo,' be performed in sharing the joy of what is right, 
or in the sad condolence at what is weak or wrong ? If the latter, 
what would it be but the rising of the whirlwind, and drifting a 
mountain of sand upon the green spot that could never again ap- 
pear ? While fate permits that spot to bloom, sacred should it be 
kept, at least from voluntary weeds. 

" One of our friends asked me how soon 1 meant to return. In- 
stead of answering directly, I observed that the question implied 
no particular wish, or, if any, rather for a retarded than a precipi- 
tated return. If any wish had been intimated, it would have decided 
me. I did not impute the indecision to any want of interest, but I 
intended to have discussed it at large the day after my departure. 
What is the wish ? Perhaps, on such a subject, the wisher might 
condescend to be also the amanuensis. I shall remain here, I think, 
just long enough to get a line — enclose to J. Spencer, Esq. 28 Bury- 
street. If I am left to my own conjectures, my stay in France might 



358 ^^^^ ^F CURRAN, 

be for the winter; it might lead to an excursion to Italy, in vainly 
pursuing ' phantoms that promise and afterwards disown.' A pro- 
posal towards such a plan has been mentioned to me, and by a 
pleasant man^ who has been there already, 

" Don't mistake me, in supposing that I meant any thing peevish 
in the indecision of wish by our friends ; quite the contrary. I really 
think it very difficult to know what wish to form, while all things 
are in such a state of vacillation. The post is just ringing. Fare- 
well! 

" J. P. C." 



" Paris, August 3, 1814. 

''* DEAR L. 

" I received your kind letter, and thank you for itj 
' levius Jit,'^ &LC, When I came here, I intended to have scribbled 
some little journal of what I met. I am now sorry I did not. Things 
so soon become familiar, and appear not worth notice ; besides, I 
have not been well since I came here. If I had written, and sent 
it to you, it would have been a tissue of astonishment, or affliction^ 
or disgust. 1 see clearly I am likely to be drummed out of this sad 
world. I fear war will soon unfold her tattered banners on the 
continent. This poor country is in a deplorable state — a ruined 
noblesse, a famished clergy, a depopulated nation, a state of 
smothered war between the upstarts and the restored ; their finances 
most distressed; the military spirits divided; the most opposite 
opinions as to the lasting of the present form of things — every thing 
unhinged : yet I really sympathise with this worried, amiable, and 
perhaps contemptible people ; so full of talent and of vice, so 
frivolous, so inconstant and prone to change, so ferocious too in 
their fickleness ; about six revolutions within twenty years, and as 
fresh as ever for a new dance. These strange vicissitudes of man 
draw tears, but they also teach wisdom. These awful reverses 
make one ashamed of being engrossed by mere self, and examin- 
ing a louse through a microscope, ' complain of grief, complain 
thou art a man.' 

" 1 never so completely found my mind a magic-lantern ; such a 
rapid succession of disjointed images ! the past, the present, the 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 359 

future possible. One ought not to be hasty in taking up bad im- 
pressions, and I need not say that three weeks can give but little 
room for exact observation ; but from what I do see, and learn from 
others who have seen long and deeply, I have conceived the worst 
of social Paris. Every thing on the surface is abominable; beast- 
linesses that even with us do not exist ; they actually seem in talk 
and in practice to cultivate a familiarity with nastiness. In every 
public place, they are spitting on your shoes, in your plate, almost 
in your mouth. Such community of secretions, with, I think, scarce- 
ly any exception, is not to be borne. Then the contrast makes if 
worse — gaudiness more striking by filth : the splendid palace for 
the ruler, the hovels and the sink for the ruled ; the fine box for the 
despot, the pigeon-holes for the people ; and it strikes me with 
sadness, that the women can be little more than the figurantes, 
much more the property, and that a very abused property, than the 
proprietors ; receiving a mock reverence, merely to carry on the 
drama, but neither cherished nor respected. What a reflection, if, 
as I fear, it is true that the better half of the species, (for such I 
really think them, when fitly placed) should be so sacrificed! How 
vile the feeling and the taste, that can degrade them from being 
the real directors and mistresses of man, to be the mere soubrettes 
of society, gilded and smart, and dextrous and vicious, giving up 
all that exalts and endears them in their proper characters of wives 
and friends, and partners in good, and consolers in adverse fortunes ! 
Even before the revolution, manners were bad enough, but many 
causes since have rubbed off the gilding; the banishment of the 
nobles, the succession of low men to power, and more than all the 
elevation of plebeian soldiers to high rank, promoting of course 
^heir trulls to a station where manners and morals were under their 
influence ; and this added to the horrible example set by Bonaparte 
himself in his own interior, putting every thing honest or sacred 
out of countenance and out of fashion. Add to this, what must have 
sent down the contagion to the lower orders — the conscription : the 
wretched men marrying without preference merely to avoid the 
army, and then running into that army to escape from their ill- 
chosen partners ; all these causes must have conspired to make a 
frightful carnage in manners and morals too. In short, I am per- 



360 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

suaded that a single monster has done more to demoralize and un- 
civilize this country than a century can repair. I am disposed to 
attribute to the same causes the growing fanaticism of England. In 
Ireland we had little to lose in civilization ; but look at our late ex- 
travagances, and see at least how much we have lost in our own 
and in the opinion of others. For years to come, I see no hope ; 
we have the anguish of being ourselves the cause of not going for- 
ward a little in the march of the world, but of still remaining a by- 
word among nations. Patriotic affectation is almost as bad as per- 
sonal, but I declare I think these things do a good deal in sinking 
my health, which is far from good ; my spirits quite on the ground ; 
and yet as to Ireland, I never saw but one alternative — a bridewell 
or a guard-house ; with England the first, with France the other. 
We might have had a mollification, and the bolts lightened, and a 
chance of progression ; but that I now give up. 

" I really wish the thing with myself over ; and trust me that wish 
is not irreligious or peevish, but rather a good-humoured feeling, 
that, not wishing to eat more, I may be better by rising from table; 
* enough is as good as a feast.' 

" I am every hour more and more confirmed as to my ideas of 
society ; it is not for those that think or feel ; it is one fool getting 
on the back of many, to fly from himself. In France you can scarce- 
ly make even that experiment, for all here agree that at the present 
moment all society is dead. Nor is it wonderful, that, when all the 
actors on the great scene are changed, the parts should be badly 
performed ; but still I have found society, as it is called, and met a 
great deal of kindness, and some persons of talent ; but even there 
I found society an orchestra, where the fiddlers were putting one 
another out, or rather where one played a solo, and every other 
bow was soaped. 

" At this moment my friend enters ; he diflfers totally from my 
opinion, saying, ' I have lived single in a great city ; few friends, 
many acquaintances ; I think I have done right and shall continue. 
Sameness would cloy. How many happy matches have you seen ? 
How many faithful friendships ? Too much intimacy lays you bare ; 
your little infirmities diminish respect, perhaps excite disgust, per- 
haps end in hatred. With the same persons and those few, what 



M 

LIFE OF CURRAN. ^gj 

chance of having yourself, or finding in them, the attachment, the 
good temper, and good sense necessary for bearing and forbearing? 
You have complained of being spit upon — but you can easily 
curse them, make a polite bow, and go away ; but that would 
be no cause for breaking a closer attachment. Are you not 
conscious, that you have observed, since we have been so much 
togethcR, some faults in me not observed before? Have you nO 
suspicion of reprisal ?' All this I treated as misanthropic cant— - 
he retorted on me, ' What is your select attachment but general in- 
tolerance ? What is the syrup of concentrated affection but ex- 
tract from the wormwood of embittered irritability ? When has any 
man ever found the male or the female inmate always equal, patient, 
and amiable ? or even suppose it, will not sickness or death rend 
the bond, and leave you or them in a desert f As to me, 1 can bear 
almost every body ; the grave-digger, i laugh at. I cannot weep 
over myself when I'm gone, and I will not over any body else.' 
He pressed me to say if I seriously thought there was nothing in 
these topics. I told him I had frequently been presented with 
them before, but was not exactly in a frame for an ulterius coiicili* 
nm. In truth, it was rather memory awakened, than opinion sha- 
ken, that made me disposed to silence ; but of this enough for the 
present. 

" I found myself all abaft. We agreed to go to la chambre des 
deputes. One of the members chanced to have heard of my name, 
was extremely courteous, lamented that I should be a mere auditor, 
but he would take care that I should be placed according to my high 
worthiness. We were accordingly placed aux premieres tribunes: 
the question was to be of the liberty of the press, and of a previous 
censorship. The baron had some difficulty in working us forward, 
and said how happy he was in succeeding. I assured tiim I was 
greatly delighted by the difficulty, as it marked the just point of so- 
licitude of the public. The chamber is very handsome ; the pres- 
ident faces the assembly ; before him is a tribune, which the orator 
ascends, and reads his speech with his back to the president — we 
waited anxiously. I thought 1 shared in the throb of a public heart, 
We observed some bustle ; the seats of the interior, reserved for 
the members, became crowded to excess by ladies admitted I know 

46 



1^ 

^Q2 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

not how. The order for strangers to retire was read; the ladies 
would not stir. The president could find no remedy, and adjourn- 
ed the house to next day. I was rather disgusted : the baron asked 
me what we would have done in England ? I said we had too much 
respect for our ladies to permit them to remain ; he shook his head t 
I did not understand what he meant. But does not this prove, 
what I said a day or two ago (for this is written by starts) to be 
true, ' that women here have only a mock respect ?' if real, would 
they have dreamed of such a silly termagancy f Does it not mark 
their unfeeling coxcombry and apathy in the public interest, and 
how fit they are to be the mothers of the Gracchi ? And yet wo- 
men here are vain of their sway. I can imagine nothing more hu- 
miliating than such Saturnalian licentiousness. 

" However, I went next day. There was a previous list of the 
orators, pro and con : they mounted alternately, and read written 
speeches. The echo was strong ; I lost much. But how can any 
man read his own speech ? He may the spfeech of the dead or the 
absent ; it is any thing but discussion. The orator swabs his face, 
notwithstanding the sedateness of the exertion ; and when he stops 
to drink, which is a part of the performance, the whole assembly 
handle their 'kerchiefs, and trumpet in the most perfect time and 
unison, to the great animation and interest of the speech, and no 
doubt to the great comfort of the auditors, who must have had their 
secretions brimful during their attention. The question will not be 
decided probably in many days. The press is surely the great 
sentinel—it gives the light to see and the tongue to speak. They 
say the Russians always eat the candles before they swallow the 
people. I can't tell you how interested I am; I begin to doubt if 
man ought to be monopolized or his taper, however dim it may be, 
put under the bushel of mere private confined affection. Some, it 
seems, are afraid of the sudden mischiefs that might arise among a 
volatile people, if restraint were removed too soon; I own it nev- 
er was my notion. But I know not how far these fears may be real 
or feigned. Such is the fate of revolutions — nothing certain but 
blood. The march of the captives begins through a Red Sea j 
and, after forty years in seeking new abodes and strange gods, the 
' leader seldom sees the promised land, or, at least, dies before his 



^t% LIFE OF CURRAN. ~ 363 

foot has touched it. What is it, here at least, but the succession 
of wretches doing the duty of the hangman, till it is the turn of 
each to be the victim ? These thoughts often console me. My 
dear friend, we must stay as we are ; but let us look at the history 
of past and the acts of present men, and learn to be patient and 
modest. 

" You can't forget my hatred of Bonaparte ; every thing I hear 
confirms it. When 1 went up to see his famous column at Boulogne, 
the poor muse, I thought was left behind, whispered at the mo- 
ment, 

* When ambition achieves her desire. 
How fortune must laugh at the joke ! 
You mounted a pillar of fire, 
You sink in a pillar of smoke.* 

" I am greatly pleased to have this man's extinction marked by 
so much abject degradation. These butchers and robbers, called 
conquerors, have kept their vices up by the splendour of their rise 
or fall ; but what a fall has this man had ! He retires instead of 
falling like a brave highwayman, or as Cataline did ; he dwindles 
into an isl-icle, and plays the pitiful tricks of power among fisher- 
men and washerwomen. After losing the game of the world, he 
sits down, like a child, to make castles with cards. Even his mil- 
itary taknts are questioned. They say, that having no respect for 
property or person, he extorted such sums of money, and thousands 
of men, as made resistance physically impossible, even notwithstand- 
ing an infinite number of mistakes of head and violences of tem- 
per — but here you know I am speaking without book. Still he 
had laid hold of the gaudiness of many, and is talked of with re- 
gret ; but his rising again is, I trust in God, impossible. I do be- 
lieve the present rulers mean very well, though the king has none 
of the vices that might recommend him here. I believe he is 
well taught in the school of adversity, and has a respect for what- 
ever is good and honest. Whether he be bigoted, I don't know. — 
An attempt was made to shut the shops on Sunday, and to carry 
the host in procession, but both failed j they were, however, de- 
sisted from with great temper. 



364 LIFE OF CURRAN. '^ 

" I now regret that I did not throw upon -paper the things that 
occurred every day ; I have often regretted the omission. 1 would 
advise you to keep a journal of that kind ; it will cost very little 
trouble, and will have the freshnesss of being ready gathered, not 
faded by forgetfulness and cold and laboured recollection. Even 
while I have been scribbling this, many incidents, that glowed with 
life at the moment, have so lost their life, that though I rolled thera 
they threw up nothing but water, and would be rotten before they 
could reach you, so 1 ceased all attempts to revive them. I had 
twenty things, the first few days to say of my host, and his wife, 
and his daughter. It seems they fled to Lubec at the first horrors 
of the revolution, and the children were born there ; the girl, I 
thought, seemed to have a good opinion of me, and 1 thought her 
good taste ought to make amends for her want of beauty ; and cer- 
tainly she had brought a very scanty viaticum of charms from the 
north. About the end of the first week, meaning to be very sweet, 
she assured me I had the best English accent she ever heard, and 
that it was exactly the same as that of her English master. Du- 
ring this chat, in marches this teacher. The scoundrel is a Ger- 
man, who went to London at five and twenty, and returned, after 
four years, to teach the purity of their language in Paris. Poor 
girl ! 1 turned her regimentals at the moment, and remanded her 
to her ugliness. However, all is well, for she knows hothing of the 
crime, or the sentence, or the pardon. The father and mother are 
very good sort of people, and have saved me from some small im« 
positions ; for really nothing can be so shameless and abject as the 
frauds upon strangers. Even at the coffee-house where I break- 
fast, the keeper of it, a very genteel woman, makes me almost 
every day pay a different price for the same thing. It is still only 
fair to say, the French are the civilest people upon earth, and I 
really believe sincerely good natured to strangers. Two nights 
ago I was overtaken by the national guard : I asked the oflScer my 
way ; he answered so courteously, that I ventured a question or 
two more ; he continued the same good nature, and the private 
next behind him assisted in doing the duties of hospitality. I said 
I was afraid he had led me to pass the line of respect to him, but 
Jus answer was, and in the kindest tone, ' Sir, a stranger ' comme il 



^- LIFE OF CURRAN. SGS 

/aut,^' can never pass it in France.' I doubt if I sLould have found 
it so in England. Apropos ! 1 am quite sure the two nations hate 
each other as devoutly as ever ; and I think their respective im- 
perfections of character will be kept alive by the mutual spirit of 
contempt. Paris will think it graceful to be volatile, as long as 
London thinks it dignified to be dull.'* 



<' TO THE SAME. 

" Paris. 



** MY DEAR LUBE, 



" I write again, because I judge from myself, and how kind- 
ly I felt your last, that you would like to hear from me ; perhaps the 
not being able to abstain from writing to the absent is the only cer- 
tain proof that distance and memory are compatible: however, 
the compliment is not great, when you know that I have flung my- 
3elf upon you as a correspondent only at those intervals when I 
could not bear my own company. The thermometer has been high- 
er here lately than at any former time. Close, dirty streets, stew- 
ing play-houses, and a burning sun, have, perhaps naturally enough, 
completed the extreme depression of my spirits, and made me fit 
for nothing. I endeavour to dissipate, by wasting myself upon 
spectacles — but it won't do ; this day I thought to look for some- 
thing gay in the catacombs. It seems all Paris stands upon a 
vaulted quarry, out of which the stone to build it has been ta- 
ken, and it is not very rare to see an entire bouse sink down to its 
original home, and disappear. Part of this excavation has been 
fitted up as a residence in remainder for the grave. We went 
down, I think, 70 steps, and traversed more than half a mile by 
torch, or rather taper light, and we beheld more than 2,300,000 
fragments of what once was life. They amount to four times the 
present population of Paris. The bones were very carefully built 
up, and at intervals were studded with projecting rows of skulls, 
with mottos occasionally written up in Latin or French. It was a 
sort of caravan, mostly women : one of them asked me to translate 
one of those ; it was^ I think, ' in nihilum revertitur quod ex nihilo 



366 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

fuit.' I asked whether it gave her a sentiment of grief, or fear, or 
hope ? She asked me what rx)om I could see for hope in a par- 
cel of empty sculls ? * For that reason, madam, and because you 
know they cannot be filled with grief or fear, for all subject of ei- 
ther is p^st.' She replied, ' oui, et cependant c'est jolie.' I could 
not guess to what she applied the epithet, so I raised the taper to 
her face, which I had not looked at before, and had it been any 
thing but the mirror of -death, I should have thought she had looked 
into it, and applied the one reflection to the other, so perfectly un- 
impressed was her countenance. It did not raise her in my mind, 
though she was not ill-looking ; and when I met her above ground, 
after our resurrection, she appeared fit enough for the drawing- 
rooms of the world, though not for the under-cellar. I don't re- 
member ever to have had my mind compressed into so narrow a 
space : so many human beings, so many actors, so many sufferers, 
so various in human rank, so equalized in the grave ! When I 
stared at the congregation, I could not distinguish what head had 
raved, or reasoned, or hoped, or burned. I looked for thought, I 
looked for dimples ; I asked, whither is all gone — did wisdom nev- 
er fiow from your lips, nor affection hang upon them — and if both 
jor either, which was the most exalting — which the most fascinating? 
All silent. They left me to answer for them, ' So shall the fairest 
face appear.' 

" I was full of the subject. In the evening I went to distract at 
the comedy of le Misanthrope, the best of Moliere. The severe 
affection of Alceste, and the heartless coquetry of Celimene, were 
escellently done. It is not only tragedy that weeps — Golgotha 
was still an incubus upon me. I saw the moral of the piece went 
far beyond the stage — it only began there. Every good play ought 
r.o be just in the particular fable. It ought also (to be useful) 
to have a general analogy far more extensive and equally ex- 
act. Alceste is man in the abstract— Celimene is the object of 
his wish, whatever that may be ; she smiles, and caresses, and 
promises. He thinks he feels the blood in her heart, for he mis- 
fakes the pulse of his own for that of hers ; he embraces the phan- 
tom, or thinks he does so, but is betrayed, and opens his eyes upon 
the desert: at the moment he does not recollect that the loss to 



» 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 361 

him is little ; 'tis only the loss of himself — to her it is nothing, for 
it is made up in the next conscription ; and, at all events, whether 
sick or wounded, the march of man's warfare is never suspended ; 
the moving infirmary never halts, and every day brings him a stage 
nearer a la harriere d?enfer^ the entrance of the catacombs. 

" This sad subject naturally turns me to another, that makes me 
suspect that my contempt of this world is not quite sincere. I 
mean the poor extravasated Irish that I meet here ; I meet iheii" 
ghosts as I pass, and view them as Eneas did, 

* Quos abstulit atra dies et funere miscet acerbo.' 

How can I affect to despise a scene where my heart bleeds for 
every sufferer ? I wish to disperse my feelings as a citizen of the 
world, and break my own monopoly of them, but they all come 
back to our unhappy country. One of the most beautiful touches 
of the prince of sensitive poets is where he tinges the wanderings 
of Dido with patriotism, 

* Saepe longum incomitata videtur 



Ire viam et Tyrios deserta quaerere terra.' 

By the by, it does some credit to the character of humanity that we 
sometimes exchange the suffering of egotism for a nobbier sympathy, 
and lament over others instead of keeping all our tears for our- 
selves. What exquisite nectar must they be to those over whom they 
are shed ! Nor perhaps should the assurance that they don't suf- 
fer alone be always withheld, because it may not be always true \ 
because for he purpose of consolation, it is enough if it be believ- 
ed, whether true or not : if the payment is complete, is it worth 
while to inquire whether the coin be counterfeit or not ? But with 
respect to our poor exiles the sympathy is most sincere as well as 
ardent : 1 had hopes that England might let them back. The sea- 
son and the power of mischief is long past ; the number i^ almost 
too small to do credit to the mercy that casts a look upon them. 
But they are destined to give their last recollection of the green 
fields they are never to behold, on a foreign death-bed, and, to lose 
the sad delight of fancied visits to them in a distant grave — 



368 i-IfE OF CURRAN. 

" I continue to feel an increasing dislike of every thing here 5 I 
probably sha'nH remain long. I have left some things in Ireland 
unsettled that I must arrange, however I may dispose of myself 
hereafter. England can't arrest me long 5 I have never found any 
good in watering places. My malady, a constitutional dejection, 
can hope for no remedy in water or in wine. In general, the bene- 
fit of those places is attributed to the attendant temperance, but a 
person little given to excess any where has not much to add in that 
way ; and as to evening parties, in a crowd of strangers, I never 
liked them, nor was fit for them : I have therefore given my even- 
ings to the theatres — 1 prefer them to English, notwithstanding the 
difficulty of a foreign language, I prefer the style of their stage 
to ours : ours always appeared to me flat and dull, with never 
more than one or two of tolerable merit •, on the contrary, here 
you never find any very bad. A comic nation is perpetually send- 
ing young aspirants to Paris, where of course there can be no 
dearth. In England you must put up with what you can get. No 
doubt, it is hard to find any exact principles of acting; 'tis in a 
great degree arbitrary and accidental — still nature will assert cer- 
tain boundaries. In France there may be bombast and tinsel, and 
; the eternal monotony of amour in their plays is liable to objec- 
tions, lying much deeper than the mere criticism of the stage 5 it 
goes vitally to the morals and manners of the people — it goes to 
make the woman a bad sort of man, and the man a bad sort of wo- 
man — it goes to take away the solid basis of every virtue of either 
sex : it leaves the man little to wish, to the woman little to bestow 5 
it annihilates the fine spirit of attachment. What can he feel for 
confidences given on a principle of good breeding ? To fascinate, 
there must be no doubt of its being exclusive. When 1 am writing 
my bad verses, 1 would spurn the muse, if I suspected her of whis- 
pering the same idea to twenty other poetasters. On the same 
principle, if you have only the sixty-fourth of a ticket in the lotte- 
ry of regard, the prize is in fact a blank. How can you join in 
triumph with sixty-three other fortunate adventurers ? Still these 
exhibitions amuse ; the acting is flippant and graceful, and the mu- 
sic sometimes excellent. The English, who have no national mu- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 369 

«ic, affect to despise French. It is sometimes, perhaps, tinselish ; 
but I own it frequently catches my fancy, and even ray heart. 



** I am not sorry for having come hither when I did — perhaps 
you see society better when cut into piece-meal, as in anatomy 
every thing is laid bare to the student — perhaps it is seen to great 
disadvantage. The best lesson that man can learn is toleration, 
and travelling ought to be the best school. There are many points 
in which this people must be allowed praise — lively, cheerful — a 
constitutional philosophy, disposing them to be always satisfied. 1 
wish, as to government, they could be brought to an anchor ; wheth- 
er that is to happen, who can tell ? Nothing can be more divided 
than the general sentiment: the higher military men have got safe 
into harbour, and wish perhaps for quiet ; all under them most dis- 
contented ; long arrears due. They can't employ them abroad, for 
want of money ; and when the devil is raised, and can't be kept in 
work — we know the story. The favour to Bonaparte is the more sin- 
gular, because, allowing for his extraordinary energy, I doubt if he 
had a single great quality. It is clear he was no statesman ; force 
alone w^as sufficient for all he did. Men here of the best authority pro- 
nounce him a man of uncommon energy in action, but of no talent 
for retreat. The question is of more curiosity than moment. If 
otherwise, it might not be easy to know what credit to give to these 
criticisms. 

"22d. At last we have got our passports, and ordered a car- 
riage for to-morrow. We shall go by Dieppe. Neither my fel- 
low-traveller nor myself in the best health or spirits : I have a 
great kindness for him, though no human beings can be more dif- 
ferent. I don't think diversity is incompatible with friendship or 
affection ; but strong contrariety, I fear, is. How different are 
they from the volatility of France, as well as from the loud, ardent, 
indiscreet vehemence of our poor people. Certainly it is not mere 
interest that forms the weight to the clock, through the utter want 
of any regulating power makes it a sad time-piece. But I con- 
sider it now as nearly a ' conclamatum est,'^ and the insurrertion act 
little other than a monumental inscription. 

47 



370 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

" London. Tuesday. (A new venue.) After a day spent at 
Dieppe, we sailed : and, after forty hours, landed at Brighton. I 
don't like the state of my health ; if it was merely maladie under 
sailing orders for the undiscovered country, I should not quarrel 
with the passport. There is nothing gloomy in my religious im- 
pressions, though I trust they are not shallow : I ought to have 
been better — 1 know also that others have been as blameable ; and 
have rather a cheerful reliance upon mercy than an abject fear of 
justice. Or were it otherwise, I have a much greater fear of suf- 
fering than of death. 

*' I had almost made up my mind to bestow a citizen to France, 
and 1 am mortified at finding any drag upon the intention— ryet a 
drag there is. I have no doubt that the revolution has thrown that 
country a century back, yet she has qualities that might have ho- 
ped a better destiny. It has been suggested to me that a winter in 
Paris might answer better. 

" I just now return from a long conversation with the truly royal 
personage,* who saves you from the postage of this. A few days 
must^ I now think, take me across. I think of meeting some per- 
sons at Cheltenham. As to waters, I suspect they are seldom of 
use. I am quite decided against them, till Charon pledges me od 

the Styx. 

^' Yours, very truly, 

" J. P. CURRAN." 



The following letter, written in 1815, concludes the series of his 
private correspondence : 



'* London. 



" DEAR LUBE, 



" As I sit down to write, I am broken in upon. In sootk 
I had little to say — the mere sending this is full proof that I have 
escaped being supped upon by Jonas's landlord, or any of his sub- 
jects. I sailed Wednesday night," and arrived here at half past six 

•'^- H. R. H. the Duke of Sussex. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 371 

this morning, sound and sad. Kings and generals as cheap as 
dirt, and yet so much more valuable a thing as a lodging as dear 
as two eggs a penny. Saturday not being a day of business in the 
house, I met nobody ; though I did not go to bed on my arrival : 
the little I have heard confirms the idea you know I entertained of 
a flatness of a certain political project ; it could not pass unopposed, 
and in such a conflict, the expenditure of money to make a voter a 
knave, that you might be an honest senator, would, in such a swarm 
of locusts, surpass all calculation. However, I know nothing dis- 
tinctly as yet, therefore I merely persevere in the notion I sta- 
ted to you. 

" I have just seen the immortal Blucher. The gentlemen and 
ladies of the mob huzza him out of his den, like a wild beast to his 
offal ; and this is repeated every quarter of an hour, to their great 
delight, and for aught appears, not at all to his dissatisfaction. I 
am now going to dine with a friend, before whose house the illustri- 
ous monarchs proceed to their surfeit at Guildhall. No doubt we 
shall have the newspapers in a state of eructation for at least a 
week. — But I must close. 

" J. P. C." 



The short remainder of Mr. Curran's life was passed principally 
between Dublin and London. Notwithstanding the decline of his 
health and and spirits, the vigour of his mind continued unimpaired, 
and probably added to his indisposition, by the constant impatience 
of inactivity in which it kept him. He occasionally returned to 
the literary projects already mentioned ; but to speak had been tho 
business of his life, and his mind could not now submit itself to the 
solitary labours of the closet. He still continued to look towards par- 
liament, rather, perhaps, to give himself some nominal object, than 
from any hope or desire to be there. While in London he some- 
times attended and spoke at public dinners. Both there and in 
Ireland his time was usually spent in the society of his intimate 
friends, whom his powers, as a companion, delighted to the last. 

In the spring of 1817, he began to sink rapidly. While dining 
with his friend, Mr. Thomas Moore, he suflfered a slight paralytic 



372 ^IFE OF CURRAN. 

attack in one of his hands. He was also incommoded by frequent 
oppression in his chest, for which, as well as for his general health, 
his medical advisers recommended him to visit the milder climate 
of the south of Europe. Preparatory to following that advice, he 
passed over to Dublin, in July, to arrange his private affairs. But 
his friends could perceive, by his altered looks, that the hour of 
final separation was fast approaching. Of this he was not insensi- 
ble himself. As he walked through the grounds of his country 
seat, with Mr. M'Nally, he spoke of the impending event with 
tranquillity and resignation, 

"I melt (said he) and am not 
Of stronger earth than others. 

/ wish it was all ovet'^ 

On the day of his departure for England, after having parted in 
tlie ordinary way from another of his friends, he returned suddenly 
and grasped his hand, saying, in an affectionate, but firm tone, 
'* you will never behold mf^ more." He had a short time before, 
when leaving Cheltenham, handed the following little impromptu^ 
as a final adieu to a family there (Sir Arthur Brooke Faulkener's), 
from whom he had received peculiar marks of hospitality and 
kindness : 

" For welcome warm, for greeting kind, 
The present thanks the tongue can tell ; 
But soon the heart no tongue may find, 
Then Thank thee in a sad farewell ! ' 

As Mr. Curran travelled between Holyhead and Cheltenham he 
was re-visited by paralytic symptoms. Upon his arrival at the 
latter place, doubtful of the nature of the recent attack, he request- 
ed of a medical friend to examine his pulse, and to declare expli- 
citly whether it indicated any disposition to palsy. The physi- 
cian assured him, that there was no indication of the kind. 
" Then," said Mr. Curran, " I suppose I am to consider what has 
lately happened as a runaway knock, and not a notice to quit." 

He arrived in London in September, where he proposed to pass 
ihe winter, still intending to proceed to the south of France, or 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 373 

Italy, in the commencement of the ensuing spring. His spirits 
were now in a state of the most distressing depression. He com- 
plained of having " a mountain of lead upon his heart.'' This de- 
spondency he increased by dwelling perpetually upon the condi- 
tion of Ireland, which his imagination was for ever representing to 
him as doomed to endless divisions and degradation. A few days 
before his last illness he dined with his friend, the late Mr Thomas 
Thompson.* After dinner he was for a while cheerful and anima- 
ted, but some allusion having been made to Irish politics, he in- 
stantly hung down his head, and burst into tears. On the 7th of 
October, a swelling appeared over one of his eyes, to which, attri- 
buting it to cold, he gave little attention. On the night of the 8th, 
he was attacked by apoplexy. He was attended by two eminent 
physicians, Doctors Badham and Ainslie, and by Mr. Tegart, of 
Pall MalL all of whom pronounced his recovery to be impossible. 
The utmost efforts of their skill could not protract his existence 
many days. Mr. Curran expired at nine o'clock at night, on the 
14th of October, 1817, in the 68th year of his age. During his 
short illness, he appeared entirely free from pain ; he was 
speechless from the commencement of the attack, and with the 
exception of a few intervals, quite insensible. His last minutes 
"were so placid, that those who watched over him could not mark 
the exact moment of expiration. Three of his children, his son-in- 
law, and daughter-in-law, and his old and attached friend, Mr. God- 
win, surrounded his death-bed, and performed the last offices of 
piety and respect. 

Mr. Curran's funeral did not take place till the 4th of November. 
His will, which it was supposed would have contained his own in- 
structions upon the subject, having been left in Ireland, it was found 
necessary to await the examination of that document, and the di- 
rections of the executors. In the interval, Mr. Daniel O'Connel, 
Vfho was at Bath, and on the point of setting out with his family for 
Dublin, having received information of Mr. Curran's death, very 
generously sacrificed every consideration of private convenience, 
and hastened up to London, to attend his deceased countryman to 

* Of Chapel-street, Grosvenor-place ; a gentleman who was deservedly 
high in the regard and respect of all who bad the good fortune to know him. 



374 L^P^ ^^ CURRAN. 

the grave : an act of aifectionate respect which was peculiarly hon- 
ourable to that gentleman, between whom and Mr. Curran a consid- 
erable misunderstanding had latterly existed upon the subject of 
catholic politics. It was the anxious desire of Mr. O'Connel, and 
of several other friends of Mr. Curran, who were upon the spot, that 
his remains should be transported to his own country, in order tp/ 
give a people, with whose interests and destiny the departed advo- 
cate had so entirely identified his own, a final opportunity of public- 
ly testifying their admiration and regret. Those who advised this 
measure were aware that he had himself (when he felt his end ap- 
proaching) found a source of affecting consolation in the hope that, 
wherever it should be his fate to expire, Ireland would claina him. 
♦' The last duties (he pathetically observed in one of his latest let- 
ters) will be paid by that country on w^hich they are devolved ; nor 
will it be for charity that a little earth shall be given to my bones. 
Tenderly will those duties be paid, as the debt of well-earned affec- 
tion, and of gratitude not ashamed of her tears," But with this 
last wish it was now found impossible to comply. His will was al- 
together silent regarding his interment ; and of the four executors 
whom he had appointed only one was present in Dublin. That 
excellent person (Mr. John Franks, of the Irish bar) had he been 
left to the exercise of his sole discretion, would have yielded to none 
in performing any act of honour or affection to the memory of his 
friend ; but in consequence of the absence of the other executors, 
and from several legal considerations, he could not feel himself jus- 
tified in authorizing any departure from the ordinary course. 
Blr. Curran's remains were, therefore, privately interred in Londonj 
in one of the vaults of the Paddington church.* 

* The persons who attended his funeral were (besides the members of his 
own family) Mr. Tegart, Messrs. Lyne and Phillips, of the Irish bar, Mr. 
Finnerty, the late Mr. Thomas Thompson, the Rev. George Croly, Mr. 
Thomas Moore, and Mr. Godwin. Mr. O'ConnePs professional engage- 
ments had obliged him reluctantly to depart for Ireland before the day or 
Mr. Curran's ialerment. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 375 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Observations on Mr. Curran's eloquence— Objections to his style consider- 
ed — His habits of preparation for public speaking — His ideas of popular 
eloquence — His pathos — Variety of his powers— His imagination — Pecu 
liarity of his images— His use of ridicule — Propensity to metaphor — 
Irish eloquence — Its origin — Mr- Curran's and Burke's eloquence com- 
pared. 

For the last twenty years of his life, Mr. Curran enjoyed the 
reputation of being the most eloquent advocate that had ever ap- 
peared at the Irish bar ; and if future times shall hold his genius in 
estimation, it is his eloquence which must entitle him to that dis- 
tinction. His name may, indeed, derive a still more splendid 
claim to posthumous respect, from the purity and manliness of his 
public conduct, during times when the hearts and nerves of so 
many others were tried, and sunk beneath the proof. Divested of 
this, his eloquence would have been comparatively worthless. 
Orators are common characters ; but it is not so common to find a 
man, upon every occasion of his life, preferring his public duty to 
his personal advancement — conducting himself, amidst the shock of 
civil contentions, with danger and allurements on every side, so as 
to command the entire approbation of his own conscience, and the 
more impartial, though not more valuable, applause of that suc- 
ceeding time which is a stranger to the particular interests and pas- 
sions that might bias its, decisions. This period has not yet come 5 
but it may be asserted that it is approaching, and that when it shall 
actually arrive, Mr. Curran's memory has nothing to fear from its 
judgment. Before this tribunal it will be admitted that he, and the 
few who joined him, in making (in defiance of much momentary 
opprobrium) an undaunted stand against those sinister measures 
upon which the framers have subsequently reflected with shame, 
were bu* exercising the right of superior minds, whose privilege it 
is to discern, amidst the tumult of conflicting opinions, and the 
hasty expedients of ephemeral sagacity, what alone is pertnanently 
wise and good — to judge the men, and acts of their own day, with 



376 ^^^^^ C)F CURRAN. 

the same unbetraying firmness with which they judge the times that 
have passed, and with which posterity will judge themselves. It 
will not be overlooked, that it is the ordinary fate of such persons 
to be misconceived and reviled ; that in the hour of general intoxi- 
cation, the most grievous of offenders is he who passes the cup, 
and will not be degraded, rebuking, by his importunate sobriety, 
the indecent revelry that surrounds him. To have done this will 
be considered more rare and honourable in Mr. Curran's history, 
than to have been distinguished by the most commanding abilities ; 
but in bis case it is needless to dwell upon his conduct as separated 
from his oratory. " Words," said Mirabeau, " are things." In Mr. 
Curran's public life, his speeches were his acts ; and all that the 
reader of them requires to know is, that his practice never discre- 
dited his professions. If what he said was honest, what he did was 
not less so. His language and actions had a common origin and 
object, and cannot now be dissociated for the purpose of separate 
encomium or condemnation ; it is out of his own mouth that he 
must now be judged. 

His eloquence was original, not formed by the imitation of any 
|/ preceding model, so much as resulting from his individual constitu- 
tion of mind and temperament, and from the particular nature of the 
society and the scenes upon which he was thrown. With the same 
advantages of education elsewhere, he would undoubtedly have 
risen above the ordinary level — he possessed powers too uncommon 
to keep him long in obscurity ; but it required the theatre upon 
which his life was passed, to give them that exact direction td 
which his oratory is indebted for its peculiar character. The his- 
tory of his mind is, in this respect, intimately connected with that 
of his country. 

By nature ardent, of the most acute sensibility, instinctively Silive 
to every social gratification, he passed his infancy and youth among 
those ranks where such qualities are the peculiar objects of ap- 
plause. The heart naturally cherishes the scenes and authors of 
its first indulgences ; and Mr. Curran entered upon his career of 
public life strongly attached to that order of the community which 
he had first known, and of which, notwithstanding his accidental 
elevation, he considered himself as a part, and as bound to their 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 377 

interests by every motive of sympathy and duty. This early in- 
clination to the popular cause could not fail to be encouraged by 
the condition of the times — by the successful efforts of America, 
which excited so much imitative enthusiasm in Ireland — and by 
those consequent movements of patriotic spirit which preceded the 
revolution of 1782. But, above all, there was in his daily view the 
degraded condition of his fellow-subjects ; a spectacle which, with- 
out any farther incentive, might readily awaken, in a feeling breast, 
much suspicion of the wisdom and humanity of the government that 
could countenance such a system. Nor did his mind, when it 
ascended from his own personal impulses to the less questionable 
conclusions of England's great legal and constitutional authorities, 
discover any thing that should make him pause in his estimate of 
the importance of the people's privileges. In contemplating the 
British constitution, to the fullest benefits of which he never ceased 
to vindicate his country's most undoubted claim, his first and his 
last conviction was, that no matter by what terms it might be 
described, it was essentially popular ; that the original elemental 
principle which gave it life and vigour, and which alone could give 
it permanency, was the subject's freedom ; that this, the most vital 
part, experience had shown to be most exposed to unconstitutional 
invasion ; and that, as long as this practical tendency subsisted, it 
behoved every friend to the throne and the laws to demonstrate his 
attachment, not by a parade of simulated or fanatic loyalty, but by 
upholding, on every occasion, the dignity and the spirit of the sub- 
let. But, whatever was the cause, whether the original character 
of his mind, or the influence of early associations, or his education, 
or the passing scene, or, as seems most probable, all of them com- 
bined, he no sooner appeared than he declared himself the advocate 
of the people's rights, a title which he ever after supported with an 
ardour and constancy that leave no doubt of his sincerity. 

It was the intensity of this feeling, which obstacles soon matured 
into a passion, that gave such an uncommon interest to his oratory. 
Whatever may be the opinion of the expediency of such popular 
tenets, there is a natural magnificence about them, when presented 
through the medium of a fervid imagination, to which the most un- 
3^;mpathising are compelled lo pay a momentary homage — to those 

48 



37B LIFE OF CURRAN. 

who are persuaded of their truth, and who feel that they have been 
defrauded of their benefits, they come as oracles fraught with rap- 
ture and consolation. 

In all Mr* Curran's political speeches this sentiment of devoted 
attachment to liberty and to country is conspicuous, animating and 
dignifying every topic that he advances. It cannot be too frequent- 
ly repeated (and to attest it is a debt that Ireland owes his memo- 
ry) that in his most vehement assertion of her rights, he was most 
conscientiously sincere. His love of Ireland was of n6 vulgar and 
fickle kind, originating in interest, vanity or ambition. Ireland was 
the choice of his youth, and was from first to last regarded by him 
not so much with the feelings of a patriot as with the romantic 
idolatry of a lover. To her his heart was contracted for better and 
for worse ; to her " what he had to give he gave," confederating 
all his most cherished projects with her wayward fortunes, and 
surrendering to her service all the resources of his genius, in the 
successive stages of her pride, her hopes, her struggles, and her 
despair. In him every man who knew him knew that these were 
not common-place pretences, which he put forth as mere instru- 
ments of rhetoric : the most sensitive of his audience were never 
under more subjection to his enthusiasm than he was himself; and 
it was in the evidence of this fact, more than in any art, that lay 
the extraordinary fascination of his manner. There was no elabo- 
rate ardour, no technical impetuosity ; nothing to imply that while 
his lips were on fire his heart might be cold ; but every look,, 
tone, and gesture, carried with them the conviction, that if he were 
deluding them he was deluding himself. 

Much of this fervour may be collected from his printed speeches, 
but let the reader of them, in justice to their author, recollect that he 
is a reader, not an auditor ; thatthough he may find the words, and 
even these imperfectly recorded, he finds not all those accompani- 
ments, without which the language is but a cold monumental image of 
the thoughts that once glowed with living energy. The words remain 
but the eye before which judges and juries have so often shrunk — the 
unaffected and finely varying tones of indignant remonstrance, or of 
tender expostulation — the solemn and pathetic pause that embodied 
in a moment's silence more of passion and persuasion than any 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 379 

spoken eloquence could convey — for these, and for much more 
than these, the reader must necessarily look in vain ; and without 
them his estimate of the orator's entire powers must be as conjec- 
tural, as if he should undertake to appreciate the merits of some 
departed ornament of the stage from a tame perusal of the scenes 
to which he alone had imparted all the warmth and dignity of life. 
Mr. Curran's speeches have met with some unfavourable critir 
cism out of Ireland ; and, though many of the objections may be 
founded, many have also been made without a sufficient advertence 
to the scenes which accompanied their delivery. It is found that 
there are passages and descriptions too strong, and even shocking 
for the closet. One of their principal merits was, that they were 
never intended for the closet : they were intended for occasions of 
emergency and despair ; to excite passions of such force as to 
counteract the violence of those that already raged ; to rescue the 
accused, and not to propitiate the critic. Yet even the critic, who 
condemns the taste that could paint the perjured informer, and oth- 
er public delinquents, in such loathsome colours as the Irish advo- 
cate employed, should remember, that upon this subject his own 
rules will justify an important distinction. A writer who, in works of 
mere invention where he has the selection of his topics, takes a de- 
light in dwelling upon revolting ideas, may be justly accused of 
being unhappy and perverted in his taste ; but this is only where 
the introduction of such images is gratuitous, and not naturally ari- 
sing from the horror of the situation. We should proscribe such 
situations altogether, were we fastidiously to reject the only colours 
in which they could be painted. We do not complain of Burns for 
the " father's grey hairs sticking to the heft,"* nor of Campbell 
for the " life-blood oozing through the sod :"t Juliet is not hiss- 
ed off the stage for her anticipated loathings in the tomb of the 
Capulets : so also it is but fair to judge of similar passages of Mr. 
Curran's oratory, and with this additional consideration, that in- 
stead of inventing, he was but describing existing facts and char- 
acters, in pourtraying which no language or illustration could sur- 
pass the nauseous. Before he had described the perjured witness 
as emerging from " those catacombs of living death, where (he 

* Tam O'Shanter. ^ O'Connor's child. 



380 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

wretch that is buried a man lies till his heart ha^ time to fester an^ 
dissolve, and is then dug up an wi/brmer," he had day after day seei 
those horrid apparitions stalk upon the public lable, and he had him« 
self been almost scared from his duty by the frightful glarings wilhj 
which they would have converted the general execration into gen- 
eral dread, into the undisscmbled homage of deferential horror/'* 

A more sustainable objection to his style is the exuberance ant 
occasional extravagance of his imagery^ It would be no defence 
of him to say that he could not avoid it ; that in the ardoirr of ex« 
lemporaneous creation, his mind frequently lost all authority over! 
its associations. It was, indeed, the fact, that his imagination di( 
often tyrannise over his other faculties, and that many wayward ideaj 
were precipitated into existence by the still pressing throng that 
followed before his taste had time to suppress or adorn them. Thisj 
defect was, perhaps in some degree organic ; perhaps discipline! 
and caution might have corrected it ; but unless he had altogeth( 
changed his modes of intellectual exercise, it could scarcely be ex- 
pected that any care could have entirely removed it. 

The dangers of offending against good taste depend in a gre 
measure upon the class of the mental powers that are employed^* 
They who confine themselves to the exercise of those of reasonings 
may continue from day to day to give extemporaneous utterance t< 
every idea ; and though they fail in their logic with every breathy 
may still avoid the smallest violation of good taste. But when Xhi 
mind ascends to subjects of invention and imagination, there is n^ 
longer this security. Where is the poet, the most intuitively cor^ 
rect. who does not reject much which at first had pleased ; whost 
mind has not been even incommoded by the intrusion of many fan- 

* " I have been eig:hteen years at this bar, and never until this yeai 
"•^=(1794) have I seen such witnesses supporting charges of this kind with such 
abandoned profligac ,. In one case where men were on their trial fortheil 
lu'es, I felt myself involuntarily shrinking under your lordship's protections 
from the miscreant who leaped upon the table and announced himself a wit- 
ness. 1 was trusting in God, that these strange exhibitions would be coa- 
^ned to the remote parts of the country. 1 was astonished to see them pa- 
rading through the capital ; but I feel that the night of unenlighted wretch- 
edness is fast approaching, when a man sliail be judged before be is tried— j 
when the advocate shall be libelled for performing his duty to his client,! 
that right of hu»nan nature- when the victim shall be hunted down, not be-J 
cause he is criminal, but because he is obnoxious." Mr, Currants DefenCi 
of Dr, Drennan^ 1194:. 



LlPiE OF CURRAN. ggj 

fastic combinations, which instead of venturing to express in lan- 
guage, he crushes at the moment of their birlh ? And it is only by 
exercising this right over the children of his fancy, by conc'emning 
the deformed to an early death, that of those who are permitted to 
survive, none are without beauty and proportion. The orator who 
in the same way aspires to create, and who, like Mr. Curran, de- 
fers the work till he is excited by the presence of a public au- 
dience, has to encounter all the dangers of the poet, without enjoying 
his privileges. The same fervour and impetuosity that lead to fe- 
licity, will often hurry him into extravagance : the latter, once pro- 
duced, cannot be recalled — he has no leisure to soften, and mould, 
and reconcile ; and hence conceptions, which in his cooler mo- 
ments he would have suppressed, or have rendered worthy of him- 
self, remain irrevocably accusers of his taste. 

But perha[>s this subject will be most readily explained, by ad- 
verting to Mr. Curran's habits of preparation for public speaking. 

From the first experiment of his talents, in London, till he had 
attained some eminence at the bar, he never composed his speeches 
for the purpose of delivering them from memory ; but both at the 
debating societies, and during his early years at the bar, he used 
to assist his mind by ample notes upon the questions to which he 
had to speak. When his reputation rose, he for a while adopted 
the former mf^ihod ; but such written attempts having proved com- 
paratively s'iff and cold, and in every way greatly inferior to hig 
more extemporaneous effusions, his own judgment, and the advice 
of his friends, induced him for ever to abandon that plan, and ad- 
liere to the one more suited to the habits and character of his mind. 

There was something peculiar and desultory in his manner of 
^Considering the important questions that he bad to meet. He very 
rarely retired formally to bis closet : it was as he walked in the 
hall of the courts, or as he rode between Dublin and his country 
seat, or during his evening strolls through his own grounds, that he 
meditated his subjects. Sometimes as he lay in bed, he bad (like 
Rousseau,* and with a more fortunate memory) creative visitations, 

* " Je meditois dans mon lit a yeux fermes. et ie toumois et retoumois 
A^ns ma tete mes periodes avec des peines incmyables ; puis quand j'etois 
parvenu a en etre content, je le« deposois dans ma raemoire,jusqu'a cc qw 



383 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

which he often declared were to him more delightful than repose. 
One of his most usual and favourite times of meditation, was when 
he had his violin or violoncello in his hand : he would thus forget 
himself for hours, running voluntaries over the strings, or executing 
some trivial air, while his imagination was far away, collecting its 
forces for the coming emergency. 

Many of his finest passages were extemporaneous bursts, but 
many were thus prepared. It is, however, worth observing, that 
he seldom committed them verbally to memory. He contemplated 
the topics and images until he had secured them beyond the danger 
of escape, and when the occasion came, and the same train of asso- 
ciations was revived, his mind not so much recollected, as repeated 
anew the operations by which it had originally created. He had 
not the words of a single sentence by heart ; he had the leading 
ideas, and trusted to their reappearance to recall the same diction 
and imagery which had been suggested at the first interview. But 
it almost invariably happened that his own expectations were far 
exceeded, and that when his mind came to be more intensely heat- 
ed by his subject, and by that inspiring confidence which a public 
audience seldom fails to infuse into all who are sufficiently gifted to 
receive it, a multitude of new ideas, adding vigour or ornament, 
were given off; and it also happened, that in the same prolific mo- 
ments, and as almost their inevitable consequence, some crude and 
fantastic notions escaped ; which, if the)' impeach their author's 
taste, at least leave him the merit of a slpendid fault which none but 
men of genius can commit. 

This was the account that he gave of his own intellectual habits, 
which he recommended to the imitation of all who aspired to excel 
in oratory ; for according to his idea of popular eloquence, a facili- 
ty of extemporaneous creation and arrangement, and of adapting 
and modifying according to the occasion, the produce of previous 
meditation, was indispensable : without it a person might be an ele- 
gant composer, and a skilful reciter and actor, but being necessa- 

je pusse les mettre sur le papier ; mais le temps de me lever et de m'habil- 
Jer me faisoit tout perdre, et quand je m'etois mis a mon papier, il ne me 
venoit presque plus rien de ce que j'avois compose." — Confessions de Rous- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 383 

rily at the mercy of every unforseen contingency, could' never be 
an orator. The practice of writing speeches and delivering them 
from memory, he strongly reprobated ; he considered that it not only 
cut off the speaker from the benefit of those accidental bursts 
which so often turn the fortune of the day, and for which no antici- 
pating sagacity can provide ; but that when exclusively persevered 
in for any time, it directly tended to debilitate his mind ; that in- 
stead of habituating him to a manly confidence in his own re- 
sources, and to that generous surrender of himself to the enthusiasm 
of the moment, which can almost impart the gift of miracles to those 
who put their faith in it, and which, even where it leads astray, will 
carry away the audience in its train, it generated a noxious taste 
for verbel finery — for epigram, antithesis, and inanimate declama- 
tion ; and along with this, a pusillanimous and irrecoverable appre- 
hension of failing to be correct, so destructive of that spirit of ad- 
venture, and occasionally heedless intrepidity, without which there 
is no plunging into the deeper recesses of human passions. So 
strongly was he impressed with the opinion that real eloquence de- 
manded the fullest measure of extemporaneous ardour and ability, 
that when, about a year before his death, he was urgently solicited 
to address a jury in defence of a friend against whom an action for 
a libel was depending, he could not bring himself to comply witk 
the request, however honourable and complimentary ; assigning as 
one of his reasons, his suspicion that after a desuetude of ten years, 
added to the more temperate and hesitating views which his judicial 
functions during that period had imposed, his mind might have be- 
come too rigid to yield to all the impulses of popular emotion with 
the same prompt and fortunate reliance which had secured the tri- 
umphs of his younger days.* 

He was unaffectedly communicative to his young friends of the 
bar who consulted him on these subjects. Amongst other particu- 

* One of Mr. Currants greatest and longest efforts was his defence of Mr. \ 
Hamilton Rowan. The following is a copy of the notes from which he spoke 
upon that occasion, and their small number will show his dependence upon 
his own mind, without much technical aid. 

" To arms.— 2^. Reform--3° Catholic emancip.— 4". Convention— now 
unlawful — Consequence of conviction — Trials before revolution — Drowned 
—Lambert—Muir— Character of R. — furnace, &c.— Rebellion smothered 
stalks— Redeeming spirit.'* 



^. 



384 ^IFE OF CURRAN. 

lars, he used to tell them, that the peculiarities of his own persoc 
had had an influence in forming his style of f ub^ic speaking. He 
was conscious that it wanted dignity and grace, and in the appre- 
hension that vehemence might expose him to ridicule, he originally 
proposed to himself to become persuasive by a mild, expos- 
tulatory manner; but when he formed this resolution he was ua- 
aware of his own resources ; his geniiis, as soon as exasperated into 
an exertion of its force, prevailed over all the suggestions of modest 
precaution. Siill it may be observed in almost all his speeches., 
that the first propensity is perpetually declaring itself; that in the 
midst of all his arguments, and impetuosity, and invective, he never 
forgets to implore. 

But independent of any study and design \ipon his part, it was 
here that he was by nature pre-eminently qualified to succeed. 
His speeches upon political subjects contain many affecting speci- 
mens of his pathetic powers; but it was in questions confined to in- 
dividual interests, where the domestic or social relations had been 
abused, that he exhibited the entire extent of his command over all 
the softer emotions of the human breast. For the secret of this 
power he was little indebted to books, or to the artifices of rhetoric. 
Its source was in his habitually intense sensibility to the affecting 
scenes of real life, more peculiarly to those of domestic happiness 
or affection, as he witnessed them in their most natural and tender 
forms, among those humble classes with which his original condition 
had first familiarised him. While yet a boy he caught an inspira- 
tion of the plaintive genius of his country, where, after all, the na- 
tional genius prefers to dwell — beneath the peasant's roof. Accord* 
ingto his own account, it was in the Irish cabin that he first learned 
to weep for others. He found there, what all who stoop to enter 
may find, the rude elements of the finest and softest affections. It 
was there that his young fancy, powerfully impressed with the living 
spectacle of all those homely but vigorous movements of undis- 
guised nature which touch the heart the most, unconsciously pre- 
pared itself for those pathetic descriptions at which future assem- 
blies were to melt : and when the occasion came of calling upon his 
ikearers for their sympalhy, he had only io present to their imagina^- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 385 

tion some of those pictures of tenderness or distress over which he 
had so often wept himself. 

His pathos, however, was not confined to such delineations; 
much of its influence depends upon the solemn associations which 
it raises, upon its alliance with emotions of a higher order than in- 
dividual suffering can produce. The pangs of a single victim may 
appeal most forcibly to our pity, but the more intense the feeling, 
the more it is in danger of failing in dignity. One of the charms 
of Mr. Curran's pathos is, that it is so often connected with patri- 
otic sorrow, or with more extensive and enlightened regrets for 
the general fate of nations. He represents the great principles of 
freedom as outraged and depressed, and deplores their fall ; but we 
are perpetually reminded that they deserved a nobler destiny, and 
are made to feel the same sentiment of exalted melancholy, with 
which we would bend over the grave of one of the illustrious dead. 
We may lament the loss as irretrievable, but in the utmost extremi- 
ty of our grief, we are elevated by the consciousness that we bear 
an honourable testimony to our own sensibility to departed worth. 

But it was not only by successful appeals to any single passioa 
that he surpassed every forensic speaker of his country ; the won- 
der that he excited was owing to the rapidity of his transitions frona 
passion to passion, from the deepest emotions that agitate the soul 
up to the liveliest combinations of a playful imagination. And yet 
this the most extraordinary and distinguishing of his powers can 
never be fully comprehended by those who know him only through 
his graver and recorded efforts. It is upon the latter that his gen- 
eral and lasting fame must now depend ; but in Ireland, while any 
of his cotemporaries who heard him survive, and perhaps long after 
they all shall have followed him to the grave, his name will enjoy a 
peculiar and scarcely less brilliant reputation in the traditional ac- 
counts of the numberless unpremeditated and magical effusions that 
have been no otherwise preserved ; and which in the estimation of 
his. admiring hearers would alone have rendered him the ornament 
and boast of the Irish bar. For more than twenty years those as- 
tonishingly varied talents, upon which the critic may now fear to 
pass too unqualified an encomium, converted the Irish courts of 
justice into a theatre of popular recreation, whither day after day 

49 



386 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

the multitude delighted to flock to behold the orator in whom they 
gloried, going, in the space of a few moments, his rounds of the 
human passions and the human faculties ; alternately sublime, in- 
dignant, sarcastic, subtle, playful, pathetic. 

This extreme versatility, if Mr. Curran be contemplated as a 
model, may be deemed a defect, but for every practical purpose its 
success was so decided as to justify his adopting it. Had his elo- 
quence been more scholastic, had every topic of persuasion been 
selected with an eye to rhetorical observances, he would have es* 
caped some literary reproaches, but he would have gained fewef 
triumphs. The juries among whom he was thrown, and for whom 
he originally formed his style, were not fastidious critics ; they 
were more usually m.en abounding in rude unpolished sympathies, 
and who were ready to surrender the treasure, of which they 
scarcely knew the value, to him that offered them the most alluring 
loys. Whatever might have been his own better taste, as an ad- 
vocate he soon discovered, that the surest way to persuade was t6 
conciliate by amusing them. With them he found that his imagina- 
tion might revel unrestrained ; that, when once the work of intoxi- 
cation was begun, every wayward fancy and wild expression was 
as acceptable and effectual as the most refined wit ; and that the 
favour which they would have refused to the unattractive reasoner 
or to the too distant and formal orator, they had not the firmness to 
withhold, when solicited with the gay persuasive familiarity of a 
companion. These careless or licentious habits, encouraged by 
early applause and victory, were never thrown aside, and we can 
observe in almost all his productions, no matter how august the au- 
dience, or how solemn the occasion, that his mind is perpetually 
relapsing into its primitive indulgences. 

But whatever judgment may now be passed upon those wandel^• 
ings of fancy by which those who were actually allured away were 
too charmed to utter a reproach, it is impossible to withhold our 
admiration of those mental qualities in which the beauties and im- 
perfections of Mr. Curran's eloquence had equally their origin. 
They both originated in that intense activity of the imaginative fa- 
culty which was the predominant characteristic of his mind. It was 
in the exceeding richness of this, that consisted the essential dis- 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 387 

tinctive x>riginality of his style; It was not that his reasonings were 
subtle, his topics imposing, or his periods flowing; all of these 
may be found in others ; but that what he passionately conceived, 
he could convey in passion's proper idiom ; that his mind had fa- 
miliar access to a world of splendid and vigorous illustration, whence 
it could select at pleasure the clothing that might best adorn, or en- 
noble every favourite idea ; it was that nature, in the profuseness 
of her bounty, "filling even to overflowing," had "o'er informed" 
him with that supplemental poetic sense, which, disdaining to recog- 
nise in objects their homely realities, is for ever delighting to in- 
vest them with attributes not their own, raising what is low, anima- 
ting what is cold, veiling what is deformed, or again fearlessly 
tearing away the veil where some high moral purpose demands that 
the deformity beneath should be exposed and exaggerated, and thus 
by the agency of its own creations, imparting to what the vulgar 
eye might view with most indifference, imagined charms or visionary 
horror. 

The images in which Mr. Curran excelled were not of that order 
which it requires, but a simple process of intellect, unconnected 
with much mental or physical emotion, to produce. There are 
some cultivated minds, to which so much varied knowledge is at all 
times present, that whatever be the subject of their thoughts, innu- 
merable resemblances force themselves upon them, rendering them 
profusely figurative, but evidently without for a moment disturbing 
their tranquillity. But the Irish advocate's finest conceptions were 
the growth of the deepest sensibility. In his pathetic and descrip- 
tive bursts, so impressively did his language communicate to others 
the full extent of his emotions, that it might be said of him that at 
such moments he " felt aloud ;" that his words were but the audible 
throbbings of his bosom labouring to vent itself in rapid, irregular, 
and abrupt gushes from the excess of feeling that oppressed it. 

In producing this electric sympathy between the orator and his 
audience, there was something more than art can teach or than na- 
ture gives to many. Its original source was in his heart and spirit 
as much as in his talents ; in his uncompromising and impassioned 
identification of himself with his subjects j in that chivalrous devo- 
tion to whatever principle he espoused, which impelled him boldly 



383 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

to defy and silence its adversaries, by the proud tender of his own 
individual responsibility for its truth and honour. In this, there 
was much that belonged to the man, no less than to the advocate--- 
much of previous character — of personal and mental intrepidity-^ 
of profound moral sensibility and its companion, moral pride, upon 
all the great questions of human rights and obligations. It was this 
extreme sensibility, combined (if not itself occasioned by) a supe- 
rior intellect, that filled Mr. Curran's style with so much bold and 
vivid imagery. For it would be most unjust to attribute to him any 
deficiency of logical powers, because he so frequently supported 
the cause of freedom and morals, by sentiment and imagination. 
The very reverse was the fact. Of the dignity and importance of 
that cause, every sound understanding which reflects upon it is con- 
vinced 4 but there is a degree of intense conviction, known ©nly to 
a few privileged minds, whose conclusions, instead of being the re- 
sult of cold and wary deduction, flash upon them at once with all 
the light and warmth of instincts ; and the consequence of this rapid 
perception is, that they either neglect or will not submit to a formal 
demonstration of what they have themselves thus intuitively ac- 
quired, or that assuming the truth to be equally evident to all, they 
think not so much of proving as of enforcing it by imposing illustra- 
tion, and by addressing their hearers' imagination and passions, 
in order to kindle in them the courage or the shame, without which, 
in defiance of their conviction, the truth might be sacrificed to their 
fears or interests. This was constantly Mr. Curran's great object, 
and it was in eflfecting it that so much of his extraordinary power 
lay. Few speakers ever possessed such despotic controul over the 
honest passions of their audience, for few ever so unhesitatingly 
surrendered themselves to the inspiration of their own. He had 
the true popular temperament ; there was no cold philosophic tran- 
quillity about him, but all was life and action. His thoughts, style, 
and manner, " had C' rtain vital signs." He was all his life con- 
tending for a cause, and he did it with no " half-faced fellowship ;" 
he loved it " not wisely but too well," and not the less because it 
wanted friends. His cause was his religion, to which he adhered, 
under what he considered its persecution, with all the confiding, 
*' desperate fidelity" of a martyr j and though his zeal might tc 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 389 

many appear mistaken, still it was zeal, real, disinterested and fer- 
vent, affecting from its sincerity even where its tendency was least 
approved, and not unfrequently communicating its flame by sur- 
prise to those who were most active in extinguishing it. At the 
period of those displays to which these observations moro particu- 
larly refer, the times were ^^ too deeply commoved" for affectation ; 
his audiences saw and knew that he had none ; his very irregukiri- 
ties proved it. He was not for ever reminding them that he was an 
orator; he had, not the art, but what was above art, the feeling and 
manliness to forget it himself. He did not consider that he was 
only acting a part of which the world might hereafter say, that it 
was well or ill supported ; but that a great constitutional trust had 
devolved upon him, of which, heedless of the world's sentence upon 
his skill or conduct, he would rigidly perform all the solemn obliga- 
tions. When midnight after midnight* he rose, '^ with darkness and 
with dangers compassed round," not so much with the expectation 
of averting his client's doom, as to show that all the decent rites of 
defence should be observed, or to give utterance to his own anguish 
at his country's fate, he took little thought of the future critic's com^ 
ments. When " his soul was sick even unto fainting," he was not 
studying hoiv " the stream of agony might flow decorously down his 
brow ; how he should writhe with grace and groan in melody," 
Upon all those terrible occasions, he felt himself to be much more 
than the advocate of the mere individuals under trial ; he had much 
to say that was not contained in his instructions. However, as a 
subject and a man, he might have condemned their projects or have 
bewailed their delusion, he still considered it his paramount duty, 
as the advocate of the thousands who were yet hesitating ere 
they plunged, and whom a gleam of mercy might recal and save- 
as the advocate of himself, of society, and of the last remnant of the 
constitution, the privilege of complaint — to discountenance the rage 
of public accusation, and to protest in his own person against the 
continuance of those fatal counsels, to which he referred so much of 
the disasters that he witnessed and predicted. 

It is impossible to read a page of his speeches without observing 
how much the power depends upon this impassioned feeling ; and 

* Several of his speeches on the state trials were delivered at that hour. 



390 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

how strikingly expressive of such a high temperature are the image 
that he employed. Numberless examples might be given, as the 
descriptions of the trial and execution of Orr — of the horrors of 
those distracted times — of the Irish informer — of " the perjured 
O'Brien,* a wretch who would dip the evangelists in blood" — of 
Reynolds, " who measured his importance by the coffins of his vic- 
tims, and appreciated his fame in the field of evidence, as the Indian 
warrior did in fight, by the number of scalps with which he could 
swell his triumphs." Many of his images, when stript of the im- 
posing phraseology, are remarkable for their simplicity and fa- 
miliarity, and for that reason came more home to the bosoms of 
their hearers, as where he exclaims — " Is it possible you can bring 
yourselves to say to your country, when the measures of govern- 
ment are pregnant with danger, that at such a season the press 
ought to slumber upon its post, or sound nothing but adulation and 
praise, acting like the perfidious watchman on his round, who sees 
the robber wrenching the bolts or the flames bursting from the win- 
dows, while the inhabitant is wrapt in sleep, and cries out that ' the 
morning is fair and all is well ?' " Or where, describing the extinc- 
tion of the press, he thus concludes — " It is then that freedom is at 
its last grasp — it is then the honest man dares not speak, because 
truth is too dreadful to be told — it is then the proud man scorns to 
speak, but, like a sturdy physician, baffled by the wayward excesses 
of a dying patient, retires indignantly from the bed of an unhappy 
wretch, whose ear is too fastidious to bear the sound of wholesome 
advice — whose palate is too debauched to bear the salutary bitter 
that might redeem him, and therefore leaves him to the felonious 
piety of the slaves that talk to him of life, and strip him before he's 
cold." 

To this extreme sensibility Mr. Curran could, for the most part, 
give expression in grave, energetic, and elevated language. Where 
the subjects before his mind were those of pity or eulogium, or of 
general description, passages without number may be cited, in 
which the most fastidious cannot complain that the dignity is un- 
sustained. But when he was called upon, as he so often found 

* ** I have heard of assassination by sword, by pistol, and by dagger ; but 
here is a wretch who would dip the evangelists in blood." 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 391 

himself, to speak in terms of reprobation ; when some great public 
wrongs, of which he had as quick a sense as of a personal outrage 
awakened his indignation, in the midst of more regular declamation, 
there were frequent intrusions of ludicrous association, which, at 
first view, may seem to form an unappropriate contrast with the 
prevailing solemnity of the occasion. In the generality of such 
instances, however, it will appear, upon a little consideration, that 
the levity is in the language and not in the ruling sentiment. Ordi- 
nary disapprobation may be conveyed in terms of ordinary and 
serious reproach ; but in ardent natures, whose habit it is to over- 
feel upon every subject, whether of praise or censure, the sense of 
wrong, that in a common mind would stop at comparatively mode- 
rate indignation, becomes inflamed by their fancy into feelings of 
intense execration quite beyond the reach of formal invective to 
express. Such persons are seldom satisfied with gravely reprov- 
ing what they condemn ; it is not enough " to tell it how they hate 
it ;" they know that the expression of their hatred alone will not 
detract from the dignity of its object ; that it is often but the impo- 
tent railing of an inferior. Whether it be a public or a private de- 
linquent that they denounce, they feel that they would be allowing 
him to escape almost with impunity, if they did not degrade him 
from his social or personal rank down to the level of his offence. 
To hatred they therefore add bitter ridicule ; for ridicule, though 
not the test of truth, is the test of scorn and contempt. Humour 
for such a purpose (and it was for this that Mr. Curran most fre- 
quently employed it) is not levity ; it has nothing of the sportings 
of a heart at ease, but its source is in the profoundest passion, and 
in that indignant haughtiness peculiar to the extreme of passion, 
which in its most violent paroxysm will assume a proud vindictive 
playfulness of exterior, lest the detested object should glory in the 
discovery of all the agitation that he excites, or lest it might be 
taken as a tribute to his importance to deem him worthy of a frown. 
It was in this impassioned, exaggerating spirit, upon which the 
particular talent of an advocate so much depends, that Mr. Curran 
approached every person or measure that he had occasion to 
arraign ; whether the subject of his sarcasm happened to be a rival 
candidate, " whose voters might be seen coming in like the beasts 



392 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

of the field, in droves, from their pastures, presenting a picture of 
human nature in a state of degradation such as never had been 
witnessed since Nebuchadnezzar was at grass ;" or an Irish secre- 
tary, " regarding whom he would not imitate the ancient tyrant's 
practice of torturing insects ;" or an English ministry, '' a motley 
group, without virtue, or character, or talents — the sort of cabinet 
that we have laughed at on the stage, where ' the potent, grave, 
and reverend seniors' were composed of scene-shifters and candle- 
snuffers, robed in old curtains and wigged from the stores of the 
theatre ;" or even though he should have to call the public atten- 
tion to " the princely virtues and the imperial qualifications, the 
consummate wisdom and sagacity of our stedfast friend and ally, 
the Emperor of all the Russias — a constellation of all virtue, com* 
pared with whose radiance the Ursa Major but twinkles as the 
glowworm." 

Over this, the most popular, and when skilfully managed, one of 
the most effective modes of attack, Mr. Curran's fancy gave him the 
entire command ; and if he ever employed it to excess, or out of 
place, he but shared in the common failing of indolence and facility, 
that of preferring as best what is found the most easy and most 
successful. And here, in speaking of his facility in creating re- 
semblances, whether of a humorous or a more elevated order, it is 
worthy of remark, that the history of his mind, in this respect, 
strongly favours the opinion that the powers of the imagination are 
as capable of improvement from cultivation as any other of the 
mental faculties. In Mr. Curran those powers were strikingly pro* 
gressive; in his earlier attempts there is little of the usual exuber- 
ance of a juvenile imagination ; they are, on the contrary, compared 
with his subsequent compositions, cold and prosaic, and, when con- 
sidered as specimens of fancy, unworthy of the mind that produced 
ihem. The same remark applies to his conversation. It was by 
his conversation that he first attracted notice ; but, however delighti- 
ful in other respects, it was for a long time unilluminated by those 
gleams of poetic conception, which in his maturer years were inces- 
santly bursting forth. The fact was (and in this his mind wad 
peculiar) that his imagination developed itself with such extreme 
slowness, that it was not till he had been for some years a candidate 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 393 

lor public distinction that he became aware of the particular powers 
that Were to secure his success. The consciousness of them came 
gradually, and was, as it were, forced upon him by the unlooked 
for effect of accidental and unpremeditated efforts : but becoming 
at length assured of the secret of his strength, his confidence, am- 
bition, and industry were excited, and he then, almost for the first 
time, began formally and assiduously to encourage, both in public 
and private, those habits of imaginative creation, which were sub- 
sequently to form the prominent character of his mind. The con- 
sequence of thus keeping his imagination in perpetual exercise was 
most conspicuous, and as a mere metaphysical fact is not incurious 
or unimportant. So great was the facility and the fertility which it 
produced, that, in his latter years, scarcely an idea presented itself 
which did not come accompanied by some illustrative image. It 
was by the image that he generally preferred to express the idea, 
and accordingly his ordinary conversation, where he indulged in 
this propensity with the least reserve, presented such a series of 
original and apparently unlaboured illustrations, that he might al- 
most be said to have habitually thought in metaphors. 

Mr. Curran's speeches are generally referred to as instances of 
what is now denominated the Irish school of eloquence, the distin- 
guishing quality of which is said to be the predominence of passion 
and imagination over solid argument. The correctness of this de- 
finition is questionable. It is true that the eminent persons who 
have employed this style perpetually express their thoughts in im- 
passioned and figurative language, but there is no incompatibility 
between such a mode of expression and the profoundest reasoning. 
IVhen a person addresses a public body, he does not proceed, like 
a mathematician, rigidly to demonstrate through each link of the 
chain the validity of every conclusion. A speaker who should at- 
tempt to make such a parade of logical exactness would soon dis- 
cover that his audience would never submit to so harassing a tax 
upon their attention. The popular orator is necessarily obliged tp 
throw out his conclusions in separate, unconnected masses. To try 
their value, we are not to ask if they are deducible from what has 
immediately preceded. They often are not so : they are often the 
fesults of previous meditation, wbirh be has stored in his ciemoiy. 

30 



394 'iFE OF curran: 

and takes otcasion to advance as they happen to be suggested by 
the topics under discussion ; although, strictly speaking, there may 
be no logical connexion between them* Their value is, therefore, 
10 be ascertained, not by examining them as deductions from his 
previous matter, but by inquiring into the correctness of that origi- 
nal process of reasoning by which alore his mind could have ac- 
quired them ; and if what the orator puts forward in the form of as- 
sertions appear, upon investigation, to be capable of demonstration^ 
it is manifest that his matter is not less argumentative because he 
conveys it in a figurative diction. The profoundest moral and poli- 
tical truths may be conveyed as well in figurative as in literal lan- 
guage. The strength of a thought depends as little as that of a 
man upon dress. We may disapprove of the taste which needlessly 
decks it out in gaudy attire; but we are not, for that reason, to 
question its native force, and still less when it comes appropriately 
adorned with the richest clothing of a poetic imagination. 

But whatever may be the merits of this style, it does not appear 
to have been for any length of time peculiar to the Irish people.* 
It was unknown in Ireland before the present reign. We do not 
find it to any extent in the productions of Swift, Goldsmith, or 
Sterne, the three most popular writers of that country. There is 
infinitely more of passion, and of the higher order of fancy, which 
is termed imagination, in the prose works of some of the eminent 
English writers of the seventeenth century.t This figurative style 
was introduced into the Irish house of commons about the. period of 
Ireland's great struggle for her independence. An opinion prevails 
that Burke was its original founder; but though Burke might have 
employed it in the British senate a few years before that period, it 
is a violent assumption to suppose that the eminent leaders in the 
Irish parliament should have unanimously dismissed their previous 
ideas of oratorical composition, in order to become his imitators. 

* This observation is to be understood to apply to the literary produc- 
tions of the educated classes. The idiom of the native Irish languajsre is 
bighlj" figurative, and has a sensible influence upon the minds of the lower 
orders ; but it would be ditiicult to show that this influence has ever extend- 
ed much beyond them. 

t Of this, numerous examples might be produced from the prose-works of 
Miltun/tiie writings of Jeremy Taylor, Lord Bacon, &Q. 



LIFE OF CURR\N. 395 

There is also the strongest internal evidence against the supposi- 
tion. An imitator does not copy merely the leading qualities of 
his model ; he unconsciously conforms to it in every particular— 
in the structure of his periods, favourite forms of expressions, and 
other minute observances, which perpetually betray his secret. 
Let the speeches of Burke be compared with those of Mr. Grattan, 
the most eloquent of the Irish senators, and not a trace of such im- 
itation can be detected : no two styles (as far as regards the diction 
and verbal construction) can be more different. Burke's language 
is rhetorical and copious, even to profuseness. He leaves nothing 
to be supplied by his hearers. He addresses them as persons pre- 
viously unacquainted with the subject, and becomes so explanatory, 
that he seems determined not to leave off till he forces them to un- 
derstand it. Mr. Grattan is the reverse — abrupt, condensed, and 
epigrammatic, rejecting the connecting particles of speed?, and 
often the connecting ideas, as expletives and incumbrances. He 
throws off his matter in the form of a table of the contents of his 
mind. 

If any single individual could be said to have laid the foundation 
of this style, it might equally be traced to the great Lord Chatham, 
many of whose impassioned bursts belong to that order of eloquence 
which was so general in the Irish house of commons : but its preva- 
lence in that assembly can be more naturally and satisfactorily ex- 
plained by the condition of the times, and the nature of the sub- 
jects which agitated the nation. In the various stages of political 
society, there is none so favourable to popular eloquence as that in 
which the advantages of freedom are fully appreciated by the in- 
tellectual classes, but are in danger of being lost, or are unjustly 
withheld. This may be either at that period of national decline^ 
when, from the corruption of morals, and its unerring signs, the 
venality of every rank, and a general contempt for established in* 
stitutions, liberty is imperfectly secured against foreign invasion, 
or the licentious ambition of powerful subjects. Such was the case 
when eloquence most flourished in Greece and Rome. Or it may 
be when a people is just emerging from bondage — in that anxious 
interval between the first signs of returning life in the national body 
and its perfect reanimation, when violent and repeated shocks are 



396 L^^^ ^F CURRAN. 

necessary to rekindle its spirit, and preserve it from relapsing inte 
torpor. This was the condition of Ireland. At such a period the 
advocates of popular rights could not confine themselves within the 
limits of temperate discussion. The flagrant abuses — the shame- 
less stand made against their reformation — the notorious venality 
and worthlessness of those who made it — the natural pride and 
generous impatience of men, who found their honest efforts counter- 
acted by a race of beings whom they despised, necessarily impel- 
led them to give utterance to their indignation in all the vehemence 
of the most passionate remonstrance. These circumstances of 
themselves — the deep sense of their country's wrongs, and of the 
necessity of animating it, and exposing its oppressors — ^will suffi- 
ciently explain the peculiarities of their oratory. Figurative lan- 
guage is the natural idiomatic style of invective and complaint; the 
sufferer (or the advocate who represents him) finds a melancholy 
consolation in painting his misery in the most vivid colours that an 
exasperated imagination can supply. There is a feeling of high* 
minded self-love in the victim, whose spirit is not utterly enslaved, 
which leads him to exaggerate, if possible, the injustice under 
which he groans, and proudly to justify himself against his destiny. 
The English house of commons affords a corroboration of these re- 
marks. Whenever the same impassioned style of eloquence has 
been heard there, it has almost invariably proceeded, not from the 
ministerial members defending the wisdom and expediency of their 
acts, but from the leaders of the opposition inveighing against mea- 
sures which they held to be dishonourable or oppressive. 

In addition to the general influence which Burke is supposed to 
have had upon the oratory of his countrymen, it has been often ob- 
served, that a strong individual resemblance may be discovered be- 
tween him and Mr. Curran. It is very doubtful praise to say of 
any one that he differed from Burke : still, if the two men be at- 
tentively compared, it must be admitted, that in many leading 
points, they were strikmgly dissimilar. Thus (without attempting 
an elaborate analysis of their respective qualities), to advert to the 
most obvious differences. Both possessed the faculties of rea- 
son and imagination in a high degree ; but the general maxims to 
which those powers conducted them were strongly contrasted, in 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 397 

all iiis general views of society, Burke's mind discovers a deep 
respect for power, for " rank, and office, and title, and all the 
solemn plausibilities of the world." He reviewed the history of 
the world, and, pausing over the institutions which had affected its 
destiny, reverenced them for the greatness of their effects. Mr. 
Curran looked at institutions as connected with freedom; and, 
where he found a tendency in them to enslave the human mind, 
forgot all their imposing grandeur in that single evil. Thus Burke's 
imagination contemplated, " with an awful gravity,'' the age of 
chivalry (the times of our " canonized forefathers" as a splendid 
array of pageantry, gallantry, and deeds of ar.ns, with its proud 
" bearings and ensigns armorial," and all those images of power 
which " carry an imposing and majestic aspect," The other re- 
membered its oppressions, and was never heard to lament that "the 
age of chivalry was gone. The same leaning to power may be 
observed in Burke's pathetical effusions. His most affecting la- 
mentations are over fallen greatness. Mr. Curran's pathos was 
Jess ambitious, but more social and extensive, embracing the suf» 
ferings of every rank. The pathos of the one was more that of the 
schools — the sublime epic pathos of antiquity. He was most touch- 
ed by historical viscissitudes. He hung over the royal corse and 
wept from the recollection that the head, now prostrate in the dust, 
had lately worn a crown. The other's tears were not reserved foij 
the misfortunes of the great — he did not disdain to shift the scene 
6f distress from the palace to the cottage or the dungeon, and to 
sympathize with those obscure afflictions which history does not 
condescend to record, but which man is destined hourly to endure* 
Burke's acquired knowledge was more extensive, and his mind 
More scientific and discursive. He looked upon the great scene of 
Buman affairs as a problem for a philosopher to resolve, and de- 
lighted in those wide comprehensive views where much interme- 
diate balancing and combination must precede the final result. N# 
one could better describe the spirit of a particular age, or the con- 
dition and resources of a powerful empire. Mr. Curran's genius 
was less philosophic, but more popular. He had more confined 
his studies to the human passions and feelings as he observed them 
in active operation before him. His general views were derived 



ggrs LIFE OF currAn; 

from his own experience rather than from historical instruction^ 
He had witnessed so much of the abuses of power, that he acquired 
a hatred of and contempt for it ; and his chief skill lay in exposing 
those abuses. He could best describe a scene of local or individ- 
ual oppression, and lay bare, for public execration, " the infernal 
workings of the hearts of the malignant slaves" who were its in- 
struments. 

Many particulars in which they differed may be attributed to 
their respective situations. They were cotemporaries ; but they 
lived in such different countries, that they might be said to have 
lived in a different age. Burke's life was passed under a political 
system, which (whatever might be its theoretic imperfections) was 
diffusing real blessings all around ; and to leave it as he found it 
was the wise end of all his efforts. The other lived under a sys- 
tem, which, with " many|shows of seeming pure," was an actual 
curse ; and his life was a long struggle to inspire his country with 
the spirit to reform it. These different objects of each — of the one 
to preserve freedom, of the other to obtain it — gave a different 
character to their oratory. Burke's wisdom had taught him the 
dangers of popular innovation ; and he would have protected, even 
tinder the shield of superstition, the institutions over which he 
watched. There is a certain oracular pride and pomp in his man- 
jjer of announcing important political truths, as if they were awful 
mysteries which the uninitiated crowd were to reverence from afar. 
Like the high priest of old, he would have inspired a sacred dread 
of approaching the inmost temple, lest some profane intruder should 
<]iscover and proclaim that the god was not there. The spectacle 
af misrule in Ireland had, on the contrary, impressed upon Mr. 
Currari's mind the necessity of animating the people with a spirit 
of fearless inquiry. To do this he had to awaken them to a sense 
of their importance and their claims, by gratifying their self-love, 
and filling them with the persuasion, that there was no truth whichr 
they were not fitted to examine and comprehend, 

Burke is more instructive and commanding than persuasive. He 
looked upon the people from an eminence, from which he saw them 
under their diminished forms, and betrayed a consciousness that 
1>e was above them. The other remained below— threw himselF 



LIFE OP CURRAN. 399 

among them — and, persuading them that they were equals, by that 
means became the master of their movements. 

This is the most striking distinction in the impressions which 
they make upon us — that we feel the one to be our superior, an(J 
imagine the other to be only a companion. In Burke's most ex- 
alting conceptions there is a gorgeous display of knowledge and 
intellect, which reminds us of our inferiority and our incapacity to 
ascend without his aid. The popular charm of the other's eloquence 
is, that it makes us only feel more intensely what we have felt be- 
fore. In his loftiest flights, we are conscious of being elevated 
with him, and for the moment forget that we soar upon another's 
wing ; for the elements of his sublimity are the passions in which 
we all partake ; and, when he wakes the living chords to their 
highest extacy, it is not that he strikes one which was never touch- 
ed before, but that he gives a longer and louder vibration to the 
chords which are never still. 

The history of each exemplifies their characters. Burke was a 
philosopher, and could transplant his sympathies. He went abroad, 
and passed his life admiring and enjoying the benefits of " his 
adopted, and dearer, and more comprehensive country." Mr.^ 
Curran was a patriot, whose affections, could he have torn them 
from their native bed, would have drooped in another soil. He 
staid at home, and closed his days ia deploring the calamities which 
Ite had vainly laboured to avert. 



400 LIFE OF CURRAN. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Mr. Curran*s skill in cross-examination— bis general reading—His convciw 
sation— His wit- Manuscript thoughts on various subjects— His manners, 
person — Personal peculiarities - Conclusion. 

Next to the force of Mr. Currants eloquence was the skill of his 
cross-examinations, a department of his profession in which he was, 
perhaps, still more unrivalled than as a speaker. Of the extent of 
ihis talent it is impossible that any description or examples can 
convey an adequate idea to those who have never witnessed the 
living scene ; but the bar, who alone could fully appreciate his re- 
sources, for they alone were fully sensible of the difficulties in each 
€ase against which he had to contend, have unanimously allowed 
that his address and sagacity as a cross-examiner were altogether 
matchless. It was, perhaps, here that as an advocate he was most 
feared and most resistless. In cases where there was some latent 
fraud or perjury, in exposing which his whole strength was always 
most conspicuously developed, he uniformly surprised his own pro- 
fession no less than the general spectator, by the singular versa- 
tility of his powers, and by his familiarity with every variety of hu- 
man character, at once so extensive and so minute, that he could 
discover at a glance the exact tone and manner best calculated to 
persuade, terrify, or entrap into a confession of the truth, the par- 
ticular description of person upon whom he had to work. In man- 
aging a sullen or dishonest witness there was nothing that he left 
untried ; solemnity, menace, ridicule, pathos, flattery, and even for 
the moment respectful submission. In contests of this kind he had, 
in an eminent degree, the art of " stooping to conquer." if a few 
insidious compliments to the witness's understanding, and an appa- 
rently cordial assent to all his assertions and opinions, or a long 
Series of jests, no matter whether good or bad, seemed likely to 
throw him off his guard, he never hesitated ;* his favourite method 

* The following may be taken as a specimen of the ludicrous phraseology 
to which he sometimes resorted : A witness having sworn that as he was 
returning, at a late hour, from a supper party, he was assaulted by Mr. Cur- 
ran's client, the counsel, in his cross-examination, asked him — '* if the num- 
ber of eggs that composed his supper was not more than that of the graces 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 401 

was by some such artifice to divert his attention, or to press him 
with pretended earnestness upon some trivial irrelevant point until 
he found the witness elated with his fancied security, and then to 
drop, as it were incidentally, and with a tone of indifference as to 
the answer, or in a manner implying that it had been already ad- 
mitted, some vital question, to which, in all probability, the desired 
reply would be given before the perjurer had time to recollect 
whether he had previously asserted or denied the fact. So unex- 
pected and surprising were his discoveries of a person's character 
and morals, from external indications so slight as to be impercepti- 
ble to others, that the lower orders of his countrymen had an almost 
superstitious reverence for his abilities, as if he were gifted with a 
supernatural power of " looking through the deeds of men." From 
the prevalence of this opinion, his name was the proverbial terror 
of the Irish informer. Even those wretches who, in " drudging for 
a pardon," or a reward, had so steeled their conscience against re- 
morse and shame, that they could hear unmoved the deep buzz of 
smothered execrations with which the ranltitude announced their 
approach, and even glory in their indifference to the " sound of 
public scorn," had not the nerves to sustain his torturing deve- 
lopment of their unrighteous lives. They were not only abashed 
and confounded by that art, which he so consummately possessed, 
of involving them in prevarication, by confronting them with them- 
selves, but they have been actually seen, as if under a momentary 
shock of virtuous panic, to plunge from off the public table, and 
fly to shelter from his upbraiding presence, leaving the rescued vic- 
tims to reward by their blessings their advocate ane saviour. 

It will not be necessai*y to dwell at any length upon Mr. Cur- 
ran's character as a lawyer. He was never profoundly read ; but 
his mind had firmly seized all the leading principles of the Englisk 
code, more particularly those of constitutional law ; and he was al- 
ways considered by the members of his own profession to have dis- 

and equal to that of the muses ?— if he did noi usually drink a little coarse 
wine at dinner, by way of foundation to keep the claret oul ot the wet ? 
if be did not swallow a squib after dinner, by way of Latin for bis goose ? 
anu if, after his foundation of white wine, with a superstructure of three 
pints of claret, a stratum of nine eggs, a pint of porter, and a supra-carg^o 
of thr«^.e pints uf Geneva punch, his iudgmeiit was not a little under the 
yoker 

5\ 



402 LIF'E OF CI 

played eminent skill in his logical application of them. In the ear- 
lier part of his career his reasoning powers were admitted to have 
been of the first order, until the splendour of his eloquence gavr 
rise to the unfounded notion, that where there was so much ima- 
gination the faculty of reason must have been deficient. But some 
of his published arguments amply refnte this opinion. 

His judicial history contains little requiring particular notice. 
Upon the bench he religiously respected those privileges which at 
the bar he had so strenuously supported. If he fell into any error 
upon this point, it was that his abhorrence of favouritism often led 
him to be over-scrupulous in granting any indulgence, where the 
counsel claiming it happened to be one of his personal friends. 

With regard to his general reading, much of it may be collected 
from his speeches. The frequency of classical and scriptural allu- 
sions, and of expressions borrowed from the English poets, suffi- 
ciently point out the writings with which he was most familiar. He 
was never deeply versed in general history; he had, however, 
studied with attention and success that portion of it (the great con- 
stitutional epochs in the history of Great Britain and Ireland) which 
it was peculiarly incumbent on him, as a lawyer and a senator, to 
know. The enthtisiasm with which, in a passage already cited, 
he has described the scientific and literary genius of Scotland, 
proves the impression made upon him by the noble productions of 
that intellectual people. His early knowledge of the French lan- 
guage has been mentioned. He continued to cultivate it during the 
rest of his life ; and though his study of it .was only occasional and 
desuliory, and his residence in France never exceeded a few weeks 
at a time, he spoke and wrote it with unusual correctness. It may 
be added, as a peculiarity of his taste, that he used to express him- 
self to be more sensible of (he beauties of that language than of his 
own. Among the French serious writers he always preferred Rous- 
seau. He understood Italian sufficiently well to comprehend the 
popular poetry of modern Italy; but Italian literature was never 
one of his favourite pursuits. 

After having stated so much in commendation of Mr. Curran's 
intellectual superiority, it may seem like the spirit of boundless 
f uloginm to go on ; but who, that ever knew him, could dismiss hi.«^ 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 403 

iife without dwelling for a moment upon his colloquial -and convi- 
vial powers ? As a companion, he was, in his own country, con- 
fessedly without a rival. In speaking of the charms of his con- 
versation, it would be exceeding the truth to assert, as has some- 
times been done, that the creations of his careless hours were often 
more vivid and felicitous, than his more studied public efforts ; yet 
is it no small praise to be justified in saying, that they were equal, 
or nearly equal ; that few who approached him, attracted by his 
general reputation, ever left him without having their admiration 
confirmed, if not increased, by the vigour and originality of his 
ordinary conversation. According to the testimony of those who 
had enjoyed his society at an earlier period, some of its attractions 
had latterly disappeared. The survivors of the " Monks of St. 
Patrick," are those who best can tell what Mr. Curran was at the 
festive board. It was in that season of youth and hope, when ex- 
alted by the spirit of their classic and patriotic meetings, and sur- 
rounded by " those admired and respected, and beloved com- 
panions ;" that his mind surrendered itself to every emotion of 
social enthusiasm, throwing off in exhaustless profusion every 
thought that could touch the fancy or the heart. No laboured de- 
scription can now convey an adequate notion of those effusions. 
The graver parts, had they been preserved, would have been found 
to resemble many admired passages in his printed speeches ; but 
the lighter and most frequent sallies, deriving their charm from 
minute and evanescent combinations of characters, and circum- 
stances, have necessarily perished with the occasions for which 
alone they were intended. 

Numerous specimens of his wit have been preserved, from which 
its style, rather than its extent, may be collected. It may be gen- 
erally observed of his wit, that it delighted, not so much from the 
naked merit of any single efforts, as from the incessancy and unex- 
pectedness of its combinations. It also possessed one quality, 
which is above all value, that of never inflicting an undeserved 
wound. In all those cases where the words might seem to intend 
a personal reflection, he never failed to neutralize the poison by a 
playful ironical manner which testified his own disbelief of what he 
was asserting. It would be diflrcult to prodnco an ^gu'^1 w^^c^v 



404 ^^^^ ^^ CURRAN. 

of pointed sayings, in which the spirit consists so little in particular 
or general satire ; neither do they appear, like the humorous sallies 
of many celebrated wits, to have been dictated by any peculiar set 
of speculative opinions. The sceptic, the misanthrope, the volup- 
tuary, and all, in short, who habitually look at the business of life 
through the medium of their particular doctrines, are perpetually 
betraying in their mirth some open or lurking application to their 
favourite tenets : the instances of their wit, if accurately examined, 
may be resolved into illustrations of their system. Thus the humour 
of Voltaire is for ever reminding us of his impiety ; that of Swift, 
of his splenetic contempt of human folly; but almost all of Mr. 
Curran's lively sayings were suggested at the moment by the im- 
mediate circumstances and persons, or verbal associations ; they 
are in general insulated and individual, ending where they began, 
and not referrible to any previous systematic views of human af- 
fairs.* 

* An entire collection of the bons mots attributed to Mr. Curran would 
fill many pages. The following are selected as a few specimens. In all of 
them it will be seen Jiow much less the essence depends upon the satire 
than upon the fanciful combina;tion of words or images. 

Mr. Curran was engaged in a legal argument — behind him stood his col- 
league, a gentleman whose person was remarkably tall and slender, and who 
had originally designed to take orders. The judge observing that the case 
under discussion involved a question of ecclesiastical law — " Then," said 
Mr. Curran, ** I can refer your lordship to a high authority behind me, who 
was once intended for the church, though {in a whisper to a friend beside 
him) in my opinion he was fitter for the steeple.^' 

' An officer of one of the courts, named Halfpenny, having frequently inter- 
rupted Mr. Curran, the judge peremptorily ordered him to be silent, and sit 
down. *' I thank your lordship," said the counsel, " for having at length 
nailed that rap to the counter.^' 

'* I can't tell you, Curran," observed an Irish nobleman, who had voted 
for the Union, *' how frightful our old house of Commons appears to me." 
** Ah ! my lord," replied the other, '* it is only natural for murderers to be 
afraid of ghosts." 

A deceased judge had a defect in one of his limbs, from which, when he 
walked, one foot described almost a circle round the other. Mr. Curran 
being asked how his lordship still contrived to walk so fast, answered — 
" don't you see that one leg goes before like a tipstaff, and clears the way 
for the other ?" 

Mr. Curran, cross-examining a horse-jockey's servant, asked his master's 
age. " I never put my hand in his mouth to try," answered the witness. 
The laugh was against the counsel, till he retorted — " you did perfectly 
right, friend, foryour master is said to be a great hite^ 

A miniature painter, upon his cross-examination by Mr Curran, was made 
to confess that he had carried his improper freedoms with a particular lady 
so far as to attempt to put his arm round her waist. *' Then, sir," said the 
counsel, " I suppose you took that waist [waste] for a cornmon.^^ 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 405 

Mr. Home Tooke, after having passed an evening in the compa- 
ny of Mr. Curran and the late Mr. Sheridan, whom he had, upon 
that occasion, for the first time met together, was asked his opinion 
of the wit of each. He replied, '^ that Sheridan's was like steel 
highly polished, and sharpened for display and tjse ; that Curran's 
was a mine of virgin gold, incessantly crumbling away froai its 
own richness." 

The celebrated Madame De Stael, who, during her last residence 
in England, was surrounded by persons the most distinguished for 
talent, frequently observed that she had been most struck by the ori- 
ginality and variety of Mr. Curran's colloquial powers. This was 
in 1813, when his health and spirits were in a state of depression, 
which rendered the effort to support his part in such company a 
painful exertion.* 

Among his papers there are a few sheets covered with thoughts 
loosely thrown together, from which a few extracts may convey 
some idea of the more striking passages of his conversation. 

" England has been industriously taught to believe, that whatev 
er degrades or tortures this devoted country is essentially good for 
her ; and that if some supernatural spirit (a Popish imp to be sure) 
were to take advantage of some dark night, and in the morning 
the Irish peasant should awake in astonishment to find his cottage 

" No man," said a wealthy, but a weak-headed barrister, *' should be ad- 
mitted to the bar who has not an independent landed property." " May 1 
ask, sir," said Mr. Curran, " how many acres make a ■wise-acre?''^ 

" Would you not have known this boy to be my son, from his resemblance 
to me ?" asked a gentleman. Mr. Curran answered — " Yes, sir ; the maker*s 
name is stamped upon the fc/ac?e." 

Mr. Curran was asked what an Irish gentleman, just arrived in England, 
could mean by perpetually putting out his tongue ? Answer — " 1 suppose 
he's trying to catch the English accent^ 

At a public dinner he was defending his countrymen against the imputa- 
tion of being a naturally vicious race- *' Many of our iaults, for instance, 
(said he) arise from our too free use of the circulating medium {pointing to 
the wine,) but I never heard of an Irishman being born drunk.''' 

* Alluding in a private letter to one of those parties, he says, *'l dined 
yesterday with a society of wits at Madame de Stael s ; Sheridan, other 
great names, &c. I find that even sugar may cloy. Perhaps there is no so- 
ciety in which less bona-fide cordiality reigns. In truth where can you look 
to find so much false money as among coiners by trade ? Believe me 1 have 
passed much pleasanter evenings at Whitehall. '* 

* A coontry-place in the vicJaitj of Dublin. 



40(J LIFE OF CURRAN. * 

with its roof thatched, and its floor dried, and clothes and (bod mi^ 
raculously supplied for his children, I can scarcely doubt that whei 
certain intelligence of so disaffected a visiter had arrived in Britaii 
a solemn fast and humiliation would be proclaimed by our orthodox 
rulers to expiate whatever of our crimes had drawn down so heavy 
a punishment, and to atone for the offence, for example, of abolish- 
ing the slave trade, and to show our contrition by giving it a five 
years reprieve, that so it might recover itself and live for ever, to 
the satisfaction of a merciful God, and the true glory of his holy 

religion." 

(" Bourbons : freedom of the press,) — Perhaps exile is the bitter- 
est ingredient of captivity. The Jew felt it so, when he wept by 
the waters of Babylon. If adversity ever becomes a teacher, surely 
her school ought to be found in exile." 

" {Christianity,)— The first ages were hypocrisy and imposture. 
^These soon excited their natural enemy, free thinking. Religion 
could have been no party in the conflict. She was neither a sophist 
nor a poet ; she had little dealing with rhetoric or metaphysics ^ 
but at last, when Hypocrisy and Atheism have made peace, she 
may come round again." 

(u i^^y^ .)— These small folks are as much afraid of the press, 

as Robinson Crusoe's man Friday was of the musquet, when he 
* prayed massa gun don't go off and kill poor wild man.' " 

" {How hold Ireland.)— The upper orders gone and the remains 
following. The people agriculturists. 

" {Jigriculiure.)— The mother and nurse of a military population. 
Ireland has been forced to this. It was thought that she was sunk 
under the arbitrary tyranny of British monopoly. Let the proud 
Briton re^-ale himself in the wholesome air of mines and workshops, 
and become ossified in the strengthening attitudes of monotonous 
labour, while the degraded Irishman draws health and number, 
and fierceness, and force, and becomes too nimble to be caught 
by his crippled owner, who hobbles after him and threatens him 
with his crutch. 

" {Irish administration,) — I should much sooner presume to speak 
out against the solid substance of an English ministry, than ven- 
ture on a whisper against their shadows in Ireland. 



LIFE OF CURRAN, 407 

" I know the seeming moderation of these men, but I fear it is 
like the moderation of the drunkard who glories in the sobtiety of 
the morning ; who mistakes exhaustion for contrition, and is vain 
of a reformation tjiat stole upon him while he slept." 

" To inflame the public mind on a point of theology, was to di- 
vert them from the great point of national oppression on which the 
country could not but be unanimous, and to turn it to one on which 
England would be against us." 

'* I don't hesitate to say, that a good government would in a week 
Jiave Ireland tranquil. 

** Putting out the law will never do ; but here the insurrection 
pet was clearly a topic in argument, not a measure of necessity. 

" In all countries revolutions have been produced by the abuses 
of power. If you would mark the process of force, look to 98." 

" The tyrant may say to the slave, you are bound in conscience 
to submit — the slave may put the question to his conscience, and 
receive a very different answer." 

" Obedience is founded on allegiance and protection ; but if an 
idea is held out that a nation, containing at least two-thirds of the 
military population of the empire, is to remain upon her knees in 
Jiope of the interval when cruelty and folly may work themselves 
fo rest, and humanity and justice awaken — I say, forbid it the liv- 
ing God ! that victim man should not make his election between 
(langcr and degradation, and make a struggle for that freedom, 
without which the worship of his name has no value." 



Mr. Curran's manners were remarkably simple and unassuming. 
Jn his youth, before his value was sufficiently ascertained to procure 
him uniform respect, he occasionally exhibited before his superiors 
in rank some signs of that pride with which men of genius are dispo- 
sed to assert their dignity ; he never indulged however in this feel- 
ing to an offensive degree. The early and long continued habit of 
his mind, was to underrate his own talents and importance. It was 
.)nly where he imagined that some slight was intended, that he 
^howed a consciousness of his claims j but the occasions of cxci- 



408 J^^f *^ ^^^ CURRAN, 

ting his vanity or indignation on this point entirely ceasing as his 
character became known, the feeling itself was soon extinguished. 

In his daily intercourse, he scrupulously avoided an ordinary 
failing of superior men, that of impressing upon less gifted persons 
a sense of their inferiority. In this department of the business of 
life, he eminently possessed (to use a favourite expression of his 
own) that nice tact, which taught him to accommodate his style and 
sentiments to the various characters and capacities of those with 
whom he conversed. However humble their rank or pretensions, 
he listened with good humour to all they had to offer, and was 
never betrayed into a ridicule of those little demonstrations of van?- 
ity and self-love, which they who mix in the world have to encoun* 
tor every moment. 

In his political relations, he w^as not vindictive. The prominent 
and decided part which he took in public affairs necessarily invol- 
ved him in many enmities, which the condition of the times, and 
the nature of the questions at issue, inflamed into the highest state 
of exasperation ; but as soon as the first fever of passion and in- 
dignation had subsided, he evinced a more forgiving disposition 
than he found among his opponents. In his latter years, he spoke 
of the injuries which he had sustained from Lord Clare and many 
others, with a degree of moderation which could scarcely have 
been expected from a person of his quick and ardent tempera- 
ment.* 

Mr. Curran's person was short, slender, and ungraceful, resem- 
bling rather the form of a youth not yet fully developed, than the 
compact stature of a man. His face was as devoid of beauty as 
his frame. His complexion was of that deep muddy tinge by 

* A few years before his death, Mr. Curran strolled one day into the 
Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey. As he contemplated the monuments, 
he became deeply aiTected by the spectacle of mortality on every side, and 
for the mom(!nt dismissing every harsher feeling-, gave up his mind to the 
solemn reflections which the scene was calculated to inspire. " The holy 
influence of the spot (to adopt the words of an illustrious countryman of 
his in relatinar this circumstance) had so subdued him, that he began to 
weep." While he was in this softened mood, he observed at a little dis- 
t;^r»ce his old antagonist Doctor Duigenan. Mr. Curran, considering that 
they were both to be soon beyond the possibility of further contention, and 
ihrit no place could be more suited for the exchange of mutual forgiveness, 
approached, and affectionately offered him bis hand. " 1 shall^never take 
Mr. Curran's hand," replied the doctor, and abruptly turned away. 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 409 

which Dean Swift's is said to have been distinguished. He had a 
dark, glistening, intellectual eye, high arched, and thickly covered 
brows, strong, uncurled, jet-black hair, which lay flat upon his 
forehead and temples. When his thoughts were unoccupied (which 
was rare) his features were not particularly expressive ; but the 
moment he became animated, there was a rush of mind into his 
countenance which dilated every fibre, and impressed upon it a 
character of peculiar energy and genius. 

His voice was not naturally powerful or musical ; but he mana- 
ged it so skilfully, that it gave full expression to every feeling and 
passion which it had to convey. Its unrivalled excellency lay in 
communicating solemn and pathetic sentiments. In private and se- 
rious conversation, it was remarkable for a certain plaintive sin- 
cerity of tone, which incessantly reminded those who knew him of 
the melancholy that predominated in his constitution. His delive- 
ry, both in public and private, was slow, and his articulation un- 
commonly distinct. He was scrupulous in his choice of words, 
and often paused to search for the most expressive. His powers 
of language and delivery were the result of assiduous industry and 
observation. There was nothing, however minute, connected with 
the subject, which he deemed beneath his attention.* 

It is perhaps time to close this account ; yet as many might feel 
disappointed at the omission of those minuter traits which render 
the individual still more peculiar and distinct, and bring him into 
a kind of personal acquaintance with those who never saw him, 
some passing notice shall be taken of the more striking features of 
this subordinate class, which separated Mr. Curran from other 
men. 

One of his great peculiarities was, that, in the most trivial things, 
he was peculiar. He did not sit in his chair like other persons : 
he was perpetually changing his position, throwing himself into 
attitudes of thinking, and betraying, by the incessant play of shift- 
ing expressions on his countenance, that there was something within 

* He sometimes mispronounced the word '* tribunal," throwing the ac- 
cent upon the first syllable. When reminded of the error, he alleged in 
his excuse, that, having once heard the word so pronounced by Lord Moira, 
whom he considered a model of classical pronunciation, he adopted his 
method ; and, though subsequently awsire of the incorrectness, unconscious- 
ly repeated it, 

52 



410 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

which was impatient of repose. It was the same when he walked 
or rode. Long before his features colild be discerned, his friends 
recognized him from afar by the back of the hand firmly compressed 
tipon the hip, his head raised towards the sky, and momentarily 
turning round, as if searching for objects of observation ; or, if he 
was in conversation, by the earnest waving of his body, and the 
fervour of his gesticulation. These were the external signs of that 
latent impulse which was the source of his genius. One of the most 
extraordinary circumstances in his constitution was the length ol 
time to which this impulse could continue to act with undiminished 
force. He used to assure his intimates, that, long after the body's 
exhaxistion had incapacitated him for farther exertion, he felt a con- 
sciousness that the vigour of his mind was unimpaired. Even his 
capacity of dispensing with bodily rest, considering the apparent 
deliciacy of his frame, was surprising. During the more active 
period of his life, he frequently sacrificed a night's rest with im- 
punity. After passing the day in his professional occupations, and 
one half of the night in the house of commons, and the other in the 
convivial meetings of the leaders of his party, he re-appeared on 
the succeeding morning in the courts, as fresh for the ensuing 
labours of the day as if he had spent the interval in renovating 
sleep. There were, in his more ordinary habits, many similar indi- 
cations that his frame was, as it were, overcharged with life. In 
his conversation his fancy generally became more brilliant as the 
uight advanced. He retired to bed with reluctance : and his friends 
often remarked, that he was seldom so eloquent and fascinating as 
after he had risen from his chair, momeniariiy about to depart, but 
still lingering and delighting them — " indulgens animo, pes tardus 
erat." In his own house, after his guests had retired to their 
chambers, he seized any escuse for following one of them, and 
renewing the conversation for another hour; and the person thus 
intruded upon seldom considered himself the least fortunate of the 
party. It appears from all this, that Mr. Curran was not much ad- 
dicted to sleep. One reason why his frame required so little may 
have been, that his sleep was generally most profound, and unin- 
terrupted by dreams. The latter circumstance he often regretted, 
for he v/as inclined to think that the throne- of fantastic ideas which 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 411 

present themselves in dreams, might, if carefully attended to, have 
supplied him with new sources of poetic imagery. 

In his diet he was constitutionally temperate : he eat litde, and 
was extremely indifferent regarding the quality of his fare. For 
the greater part of his life he was subject to a debility of the 
stomach, which, though it could scarcely be called a disease, was 
yet so permanent as to be the source of the utmost inconvenience. 
Whenever dinner was delayed beyond the expected time, the irri- 
tation of his stomach became so intolerable, that he was frequently 
obliged to retire altogether from the company. From his attach- 
ment to the pleasures of convivial society, he was supposed to have 
been addicted to wine ; but the fact was that a very small quantity 
excited him ; and, whenever he drank to any excess (as was some- 
times the case in large companies) it was rather mechanically and 
from inattention than from choice. When left to his natural pro- 
pensities, he v/as almost as temperate in this respect as in his food. 
At his own table he was hospitable and unceremonious. In every 
transaction of common life, he disliked and despised the affectation 
of statCr His maxim was, that the festive board should be a little 
republic, where the host, having previously provided whatever was 
necessary for the general interest, should appear with no greater 
privileges or responsibilities than a guest. 

From the same distaste to show, he was always remarkable for 
the plainness, and even negligence, of his external dress ; but he 
paid the most scrupulous attention to personal cleanliness. His 
regular custom was to plunge every morning when he rose into cold 
water. It may be generally added, that, in all his ordinary habits, 
in his house, his equipage, his style of living, of travelling, &c. — 
the same republican simplicity prevailed. During the two or three 
last years of his life, he might often be seen, on the road between 
London and Cheltenham, seated outside one of the public coaches, 
and engaged in familiar conversation with the other passengers* 

His constitutional tendency to melancholy has been already no- 
ticed : yet, in the familiar intercourse of daily life, the prominent 
characteristic of his mind was its incessant playfulness — a quality 
which rendered his society peculiarly acceptable among females 
and young persons. He took great delight in conversing with little 



412 LIFE OF CURRAISf. 

children, whom he generally contrived to lead into the most exquis- 
itely comical dialogues. He was fond of giving ludicrous appella- 
tions to the places and persons around him. His friend Mr. Hudson 
the dentist's house was built in " the Tuscan order" — a celebrated 
snuff-manufacturer's country-seat was " Sneeze-town " — the libra- 
ries at watering-places were " slopshops of literature." He call- 
ed a commander of yeomanry (who dealed largely in flour) " Mar- 
shal Sacks" — a lawyer, of a corpulent frame, " Grotius " — another, 
who had a habit of swelling out his cheeks, " Puffendorf-" He 
often humorously remonstrated with a friend, who was of a very 
tall stature, and with whom, as one of his " very longest acquaint- 
ances," he used that freedom, " upon his want of decorum in going 
about and peeping down the chimnies, to see what his neighbours 
were to have for dinner," This list might be extended to a great- 
er length than would be necessary or suitable. 

In speaking of Mr. Curran's literary habits, it should have been 
mentioned that he was, for the greater part of his life, an ardent 
reader of novels. In his earlier years, it was his regular custom to 
have one imder his pillow, v/ith which he commenced and closed the 
reading of the day. His sensibility to the interest of such works 
was so excessive , as to be scarcely credible by those who never saw 
him sobbing, almost to suffocation, over the pathetic details of Rich- 
ardson,* or in more extravagant paroxysms of laughter at the ludi- 
crous descriptions of Cervantes. There was a kind of infantile 
earnestness in his preference of any thing of this sort which struck 
his fancy; for days it would usurp his thoughts and conversation, 
when the translation of the Sorrows of Werter first appeared, he 
was for ever repeating and praising some favourite passages,! and 
calling upon every friend that chanced to visit him to join in the 
eulogy, with all the impatience of a child to display a new toy to 
his companions. 

* Particularly the will of Clarissa Harlowe, which he considered a mas- 
terpiece of pathos- 

t Among them was the following, from one ofWerter's letters — *' When 
in the fine evenings of the summer you walk towards the mountains, think 
of me ; recollect the time, yvu have so often seen me come up from the 
vsliey ; raise your eyes to the churchyard that contains my grave, and, by 
the iijiht of the departing sun, see how the evening breeze waves the high 
grass which grows over me*'* 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 413 

Such were his excellencies, or his harmless peculiarities, and the 
office of enumerating them has been easy and attractive. But 
biography, if the fidelity to truth which it demands be too rigidly 
exacted, may become a harsh task, converting a friend, or one 
nearer than a friend, into the ungracious character of an accuser. 
Every lover of genius would wish that this account of Mr. Curran's 
life might here have closed, without rendering it liable to the charge 
of having suppressed any circumstance which it would not have 
been to the interest of his name to have disclosed. But the ques- 
tion will be asked, has this been a faithful picture ? — Have no shades 
been designedly omitted? — Has delicacy or flattery concealed no de- 
fects, without which the resemblance cannot be true ? To such inqui- 
ries it is answered, that the estimable qualities, which have formed 
the preceding description, have not been invented or exaggerated ; 
and if the person, who has assumed the duty of collecting them, has 
abstained from a rigorous detail of any infirmities of temper or 
conduct, it is because a feeling more sacred and more justifiable than 
delicacy or flattery has taught him, and should teach others, to regard 
them with tenderness and regret. In thus abstaining from a cruel and 
unprofitable analysis of failings, to which the most gifted are often 
the most prone, no deception is intended. It is due to that public 
to whom Mr. Curran's merits have been here submitted as deserving 
their approbation, to admit with candour that some particulars have 
been withheld which they would not have approved ; but it is also 
due to his memory to declare, that in balancing the conflicting ele- 
ments of his character, what was virtuous and amiable will be found 
to have largely preponderated. He was not perfect ; but his im- 
perfections have a peculiar claim upon our forbearance, when we 
reflect that they sprung from the same source as his genius, and 
may be considered as almost the inevitable condition upon which 
that order of genius can be held. Their source was in his imagi- 
nation. The same ardour and sensibility which rendered him so 
eloquent an advocate of others, impelled him to take too impas- 
sioned and irritating views of questions that personally related to 
himself. The mistakes of conduct into which this impetuosity of 
temperament betrayed him cannot be defended by this or by any' 
other explanation of their origin, yet it is much to be able to Say 



414 LIFE OF CURRAN. 

that they were almost exclusively confined tea single relation, and 
that those who in consequence suffered most, but who, from their 
intimate connexion with him, knew him best, saw so many redeem- 
ing qualities in his nature, that they uniformly considered any ex- 
clusion, from his regard not so much in the light of an injustice, as 
of a personal misfortune. 

There was a time when such considerations would have failed to 
appease his numerous accusers, who, under the vulgar pretext of 
moral indignation, were relentlessly taking vengeance on his public 
virtues by assiduous and exaggerated statements of private errors^ 
which, had he been one of the enemies of his country, they would 
have been the first to screen or justify. But it is hoped, that he 
was not deceiving himself when he anticipated that the term of 
their hostility would expire as soon as he should be removed be- 
yond its reach. " The charity of the survivors (to use his own ex- 
pressions) looks at the failings of the dead through an inverted glass r 
and slander calls off the pack from a chase in which, when there 
can be no pain, there can be no sport; nor will memory weigh 
their merits with a niggard steadiness of hand." But even should 
this have been a delusive expectation — should the grave which now 
covers him prove an unrespected barrier against the assaults of 
political hatred, there will not be wanting many of more generous 
minds, who loved and admired him, to rally round his memory from 
the grateful conviction that his titles to his country's esteem stand 
in defiance of every imperfection, of which his most implacable 
revilers can accuse him. As long as Ireland retains any sensibility 
to public worth, it will not be forgotten, that (whatever wayward- 
ness he may have shown towards some, and those a very few) she 
had, in every vicissitude, the unpurchased and most unmeasured 
benefit of his affections and his virtues. This is his claim and his 
protection ; that having by his talents raised himself from an hum- 
ble condition to a station of high trust and innumerable temptations, 
he held himself erect in servile times, and has left an example of 
political honour, upon which the most scrutinizing malice cannot 
detect a stain. Nor will it be deemed an inconsiderable merit to 
have thus, without fortune or connexions, forced his way into a sit- 
uation of such responsibility. '* He that seeketh to be eminent 



LIFE OF CURRAN. 415 

amongst able men (said ihe ablest of men) hath a great task."* 
This task Mr. Curran fulfilled. In the generous struggle for di- 
stinction, he was surrounded, not by a race of puny competitors, 
whom accident or wealth had lifted above their sphere, but by men 
of surpassing vigour, in whose ranks none but athletic minds could 
be enrolled. Flood, Yelverton, Daly, Burgh, Perry, Forbes, Pon- 
sonby, and, to crown the list, their leader and solitary survivor, 
Henry Grattan— these, all of them great names, and worthy of their 
country's lasting pride, were the objects of his honourable emula- 
tion , and to have been rewarded by their approbation, and admit- 
ted an associate of their labours, is in itself an evidence of his 
vajue. which neither praises can increase, nor envy lake away, 

^ Bacon's Essays. 



P(^I^1E 



53 



^ 



POEMS. 



■^i 



In addition to the verses occasionally introduced in the preceding 
pages, tliere are the following further poetical productions of Mr* 
Curran, the omission of which (it has been suggested) would be 
regretted by many readers, particularly by those of his own 
country. 



LINES 

Addressed to Lady , in answer to a poem in which she had predicted 

the future freedoH^of Ireland, 

Th'^ western sun o'er Dalua's flood 

The castle's length'ning shadow flung 
To heaven, the minstrels of the wood 

The vesper song of nature sung. 

Clasp'd in her arms, fair Marion's boy 

Now lost his infant cares in rest : 
Or basking in his mother's joy, 

Drank health and virtue from her breast. 

Her form— but stay, rash poet ! stay. 

Nor vainly paint the beauteous shrine, 
Unless thy pencil can pourtray 

The form divine that dwells within. 

She saw the hearse that ling'ring slow, 
Scarce seem'd the opposing hill to climb; 

She heard the mingling soun'ds of woe. 
For manhood fall'n before its time. 

His arm had smote bis country's foe. 

For her his heart had scorn'd to fear ; 
But civil feud had laid him low, 

The laurel wither'd on his bier. 



430 POEMS. 

His old sire tott'ring^ to his tomb, 
Bewail'd his as:e's comfort fled ; 

His love, too, follow'd, craz'd and dumb, 
In grief that had no tears to shed. 

The mournful train, th' untimely blow, 
In Marion's patriot mind awoke ; 

The sleeping forms of Erin's woe, 
The blood-stain d tow'r, the stranger yoke, 

Her various memory moves the veil 
That hid the deeds of parted times. 

And tells her wounded soul the tale 
Of Erin's shames, of Albion's crimes. 

With rapid glance her thought survey'd 
Of fiends obscene the ghastly band, 

By tyrant perfidy array'd. 
To lord it o'er a victim land. 

Pale sloth with vice and misery join'd. 
And credulous faith and discord dire ; 

And superstition bloody and blind. 
Kindling her sacramental fire. 

" How long," she cried," O ! power supreme, 
By folly shall the world be sway'd ? 

Oh, virtue, art thou but a name, 
Oh, freedom, art thou but a shade ! 

** And thou, dread justice, canst thou sleep, 
While hopeless millions pine forlorn ; 

While crimes their frantic revels keep, 
And laugh thy tardy power to scorn ? 

*' Canst thou behold th' unworthy yoke 
Crush all that's gen'rous, all that's good ? 

Is there no wrath ?" But while she spoke. 
An ancient form' before her stood. 

To view the venerable sage, 
She raised her eye, that o'er his head 

Soft beaming on the marks of age. 
Sweet youth's celestial lustre shed. 



POEMS. 421 



So on the mountain's snow-clad brow, 
When falls the light of parting day, 

The drifted whiteness seems to glow, 
Illumed, not melted, in tbe ray. 

" No ! Justice never sleeps," he said : 
" In every age, in every clime, 

She levels at the guilty head, 
And measures punishment by crime. 

" Deep woven in the frame of things 
Is heaven's unchangeable decree. 

From guilt alone that misery springs. 
That virtue only can be free. 

" The rage of war, the bigot fire, 

The storm that lifts th' insatiate main, 

The pest that piles the carnage dire, 
Are but the servants of her reign. 

** When most the tyrant seems to rave, 
'Tis justice that afflicts mankind. 

And makes the body of the slave 
Fit jail for the degenerate mind. 

** By patriot rage, when Julius bled, 
The tyrant still escaped his doom, 

And lived (tho' Brutus' friend lay dead) 
Immortal in the crimes of Rome. 

" Yet victor in the generous strife. 
For freedom he resign'd his breath ; 

He sought it in the dream of life. 
He found it in the sleep of death. 

** For nature, ever in her prime. 
Sleeps but to renovate her force ; 

And pausing from the toils of time, 
Takes breath for her eternal course. 

" Perhaps the moment may arrive 
When Erin's sons shall think like thee ', 

That moment she begins to live, 
And virtuous Erin to be free- 



423 POEMS. 

" Till then, in vain the patriot deed, 
Til) then condemnM a hopeless slave, 

Erin may struggle or may bleed, 
But freedom dwells beyond the grave/* 



A LETTER IN RHYME TO A FRIEND. 

Dublin, Dec. 3, 1798. 

Dear Dick, in answer to your letter, 
These presents take instead of better; 
And hard it is enough, God knows, 
To write in verse, and think in prose. 
For when those baggages of Muses, 
No matter how a bard them uses. 
Get but a peep at's Sapience big, 
Hisgoat's-beard band, and proper wig, 
They, void of modesty or grace, 
Do sneer and titter in his face ; 
Then leave him to his own bad leading. 
To eke out rhyme with special pleading. 
Without them, then, we'll what we can do, 
And more than that can mortal man do ? 

** But why not answer long before ? 
Why silent for a month or more ?" 
My packet for the Head had parted 
Ere yours from Church-lane dock had started. 
But here arrived it safely lay, 
Un-Lees'd un-Sirr'd*, for many a day. 
No studious spy the seal explored, 
Nor angling minion hook'd a word. 
But all your notions, as you wrote 'em. 
In statu quo, just so I got 'em, 
Uncrack'd as e^g in new- mown hay, 
Or well primed cheek of Lady Gay, 
Or cozy gammon snugg'd in malt, 
The virtue suck of attic salt. 

So you bring Madam up to town, 
To see her friends and choose a gown, 

* Lees and Sirr, officers of search in the rebellious 



POEMS. 423 



To slack a few of those hard guineas. 
You roach by prosodizing ninnies. 
Of 'many a welcome' you're secure, 
* Of beds you are not quite so sure.' 
There you mistake, 'tis the reverse, 
The beds are many — welcomes scarce. 
When welcome is a word, 'tis many. 
When 'tis a thing, most rare of any. 
The churl that simpers at the door, 
Swears that you're welcome Oh most sure ! 
Again a thousand welcomes swears, 
And starves your guts and crams your ears ; 
Yet inly damns the lihg'ring drone, 
You're welcome, but you're better gone. 

One single welcome here you'll find, 
But that of far a different kind ; 
Nor yet that welcome be afraid of, 
I'll tell you what's the stuff 'tis made of. 
A head and heart you may have known ; 
The heart at least, 'twas much your own. 
I know not if the head you knew ; 
Both should be belter — both knew you. 

This luckless heart in early days, 
Not dead to worth, not dead to praise, 
Yet suffer'd many a dire disaster 
From careless thrift of thoughtless master. 
A cymbal not inaptly strung, 
A cymbal of no native song — 
'Twas Filent, or it gave the note, 
As Circe or Minerva smote ; 
Sometimes too slow, sometimes too fast, 
Undone alike by rest or haste. 
Its creditors, alarmed at last, 
To see it go to wreck so fast, 
Agreed together, on a day. 
To come and take their shares away. 
The heart, from bottom to the top. 
Was nicely scor'd, and so cut up. 
Then might you see Tvhole troops of vices 
Come boldly forth, and carve the^ir slices -, 



424 POEjvrs. 

Wild hopes, vain joys, vows, loves, and graces, 
In various garbs, from various places. 
Among the rest, even virtues came. 
But smote their heads, and made no claim. 
At length a single bit remained, 
By none desired, by most disdain'd ; 
When friendship, smiling, said, ' we'll take it, 
Perhaps with care we'll something make it ; 
Could we but get wherewith to patch it, 
A lucky bit of head to match it.' 
Scarce was it sooner said than done. 
Forthwith the bead was named anon. 
Peter, perhaps, might it remember, 
Tho' time has pass'd 'twixt May 'nd November ; 
Tho' singed, as if 'twas worn by Shadrack, 
Or faded, as it had come from Tabrak, 
It was the same that many a day 
Made Bally Patricks folks so gay ; 
When the group cluster'd round the fire, 
The men, the maids, the dogs, the squire. 
Told the arch tale, or sprung the joke. 
Or drew the laugh, ere yet it spoke ; 
That made fat Nancy's sides to shake, 
And blind Jack's fatter head to ache ; 
And Jemmy's too, with needle nose. 
And lusty Peg's with sky-blue hose. 
From that same head a bit sbe cut. 
Not sinciput, nor occiput, 
Nor eye, nor ear, nor nose, nor hair, 
For these are all just as they were. 
Doctors that know these names may tell 'em, 
They think it was the cerebellum. 
I hope she was not such an elf 
To choose the worst, to help herself. 
These fragments then she skilful join'd. 
In mystic union close combined. 
* Welcome^' she said, * thy name shall be. 
To honour sacred, and to me : 
Ne'er be thou squandered on the knave^ 
The fool, the flatterer, or the slave ; 
* To worth alone still he thy door 

Prompt on the hinge, and prompt thy store ; 



FOEMS. 425 

To worth, that ever in its prime 
Feels no decrepitude of time, 
No shade of wealth, no shade of power, 
That changes with the changing hour, 
Round fortune's gnomon loves to play, 
And lengthens with the sinking ray. 

Come then, dear Dick, and you shall find 
This welcome mellow, just, and kind : 
Tell Jane, a blockhead here refuses 
T' admit four graces or ten muses ; 
So bid her bring her smile and song. 
And soon we'll prove the blockhead wrong. 
Tell Peter too, that if he come, 
He'll find his value and his room. 
We'll laugh as when in happier day 
Fortune was kind and hope was gay. 
Death shall mistake, and pass us by. 
Thinking us yet too young to die. 
Nor fear to meet bad fare or scanty ; 
Of roots and milk, and fowls, we've plenty— 
A croppy heifer, spared by Holt,* 
No doubt a favourer of revolt. 
Spared by the traitor for that reason. 
Upon her horn clear marks of treason.! 
The beast a rebel would not steal, 
A loyal subject well may kill. • 

Wine, too, of France, ihe price unpaid. 
We'll drink it to annoy their trade : 
We'll fleece the rascals, if we can. 
And damn their pagan rights of man. 

Haste, then, dear Dick, the madam bring ; 
God send you safe, and bless the king. 

J. P. CURRAN. 

» A rebel chief of the Wicklow mountains. 

f This alludes to a custom among the rebels of marking the horns of their catlle io a par- 
Vicular manner, which saved them from the depredations of their own partj. 



5? 



426 ' POEMi 



THE PLATE WARMER, 

Extract from a private letter of Mr. Curran on the subject of this poem. 

"I have been very low for some weeks. I was extremely ill. An un- 
aired court-house, and some very small inadvertencies, had accumulated a 
dreadful cold upon me ; incessant cough — sleeplessness of course — and ut- 
ter loss of spirits and appetite. Now, thank God, I am recovered, but yet 
as tender as so tough a sprig can be, and green as a laurel — fit almost to 
weave a chaplet for ©ur old friend the Roving Bard that surig th6 ' Bril- 
liant brothers bred and born bright,' — Apropos — Did they give you my 
Plate warmer? I thought of you and Tom* twenty times during its gesta- 
tion. I fear it shows there may be eccentricity without fancy. A worm 
may cravrl as far from the direct line as a bird can fly, though not so quick- 
ly 5 and yet the reasoning of dullness is not void of principle ; for if wit 
be the combination ©f ideas, having the least possible resemblance, is it 
not natural to suppose that to be still more witty, when there is no resem- 
blance at all ? You'll find also some dragging in the parts of the narration, 
not much to be wondered at in any thing written by snatches, and in which 
the welding of cold iron is so very difficult, as it must be, where you are 
obliged to supply the want of heat by hammering. On the whole, I ex- 
pected little, but I found less. I thought all the poets had gone too far in \ 
burlesquing Vulcan, and I thought to furbish him up into something better 
than a mere blacksmith, and more likely to find some grace in the eyes of 
Venus. Venus, too, has been very much degraded by the licentiousness of 
modern poets. Homer, and still more Virgil, make her full of taste, a sen- 
sibility sometimes an ill counsellor, that loved not ice, and could not walk 
upon it without sometimes slipping— a keen, subrisive, but polished artifice, 
that could draw for its purposes from the tenderest sources of the heart* 
To do this, or rather to attempt it, naturally threw the key of the verses 
into a flat third -, but, unfortunate ! of the few that saw it, none saw into any 
design but that of unmixed comicality. I dare say, if it had been visible, it 
would have been seen. I fancy the union of the sad and the gay is scarce- 
ly in nature. They may heighten each the other if it be juxtaposition 
without blending : and that tew have attempted with success. If they 
blend, they neutralize each other, and all effect is lost, unless, as in the 
^ccK^voef yeXxrcta-ei of Homer, where no contrast is intended ; but the smile 
and the tear form not a contrasted, but a co-operating expression of the 

* The Rev. Thomas Crawford, of Lisraore. 



POEMS. 427 

same sentiment of maternal fondness. Perhaps the sad strain of the accom- 
paniment to Corelii's famous jig may fall within the same idea. However 
all this fine criticism may be, you'll find little to commend, except the twi- 
light, which I rather think is new. On the whole, I am not sorry that this 
poetical ticket should come up an honest proSe blank. It will turn Uhose 
intervals in which the mind must seek for refreshment in ©rder to be able 
to work more usefully, to some better subject." 

THE PLATE-WARMER. 

In days of yore, when mighty Jove 

With boundless sway ruled all above, 

He sometimes chanced abroad to roam 

For comforts, often missed at home : 

For Juno, though a loving v^rife, 

Yet lov'd the din of household strife ; 

Like her own peacocks, proud and shrill. 

She forced him oft against his will, 

Hen-peck'd and over-match'd, to fiy^ 

Leaving her empress of the sky ; 

And hoping on our earth to find 

Some fair, less vocal, and more kind* 

But soon the sire of men and gods 

Grew weary of our low abodes ; 

Tired with his calendar of saints, 

Their squalling loves, their dire complaints : 

For queens themselves, when queens are frail, 

And forced for justest cause to rail, 

To find themselves at last betrayed. 

Will scold just like a lady's rtiaid ; 

And thus poor Jove again is driven, 

Oh, sad resource ! to go to Heaven. 

Downcast and surfeited with freaks, 

The crop-sick thunderer upward sneaks, 

More like a loser than a winner, 

And almost like an earthly sinner ; 

Half quenched the lustre of his eyes. 

And lank the curl that shakes the skies ; 

His doublet buttoned to his chin, 

Hides the torn tucker folded in. 

Scarce well resolved to go or stay, 

He onward takes his lingering way, 

For well he knows the bed of roses 

On which great Juno's mate leposcsb 



428 POEMS. 

At length to Heaven's high portal come, 

No smile, no squeeze, no welcome home ; 

With nose up-toss'd, and bitter sneer, 

She scowls upon her patient dear ; 

From morn till noon, from noon to night, 

'Twas still a lecture to the wight ; 

And yet the morning, sooth to say, 

Was far the mildest of the day ; 

For in those regions of the sky 

The goddesses are rather shy. 

To beard the nipping early airs. 

And therefore come not soon down stairs * 

But, snugly wrapp'^d, sit up and read, 

Or take their chocolate in bed. 

So Jove his breakfast took in quiet — 

Looks there might be, but yet no riot ; 

And had good store of list'ners come, 

It might have been no silent room j 

But she, like our theatric wenches, ,; 

Loved not to play to empty benches t 

Her brows close met in hostile form. 

She heaves, the symptoms of a storm^ 

But yet the storm itself repressed 

Labours prelusive in ber brcoet. 

Reserved as music for that hour. 

When every male and female power 

Should crowd the festive board around. 

With nectar and ambrosia crown'd, 

In wreathed smiles and garlands dress'd, 

With Jove to share the gen*rous feast. 

'Twas then the snowy elbowed queen 

Drew forth the stores of rage and spleen ; 

'Twas then the gathered storm she sped 

Full-levelled at the thunderer's head ; 

In descant dire, she chanted o'er 

The tale, so often told before ; 

His graceless gambols here on earth — 

The secret meeting — secret birth ; 

His country freaks in dells and valleys. 

In town, o'er Strands, and Cranbourne-alleyf, 

Here lifts his burglar hand the latch. 

There scrambles through the peasant's thatch ^ 



POEMS. 439 



When such a prowling fox gets loose, 

\%hsLt honest man can keep his goose ? 

Nor was the Theban feat untold, 

Trinoctial feat so fanoed of old ; 

When night the pander vigil kept, 

And Phoebus snored as if he'd slept. 

And then Europa, hatetul name — 

A god a bull — oh, fie for shame ! 

When vagrant love can cost so dear, 

No wonder we've no nursery heye, 

No wonder when imperial Jove 

Can meanly hunt each paltry love. 

Sometimes on land, sometimes on water, 

With this man's wife, and that man's daughter, 

If I must wear a matron willow; 

And lonely press a barren pillow. 

When Leda, too, thought fit to wander. 

She found her paramour a gander ; 

And did his god-ship mount the nest. 

And take his turn to hatch and rest ? 

And did he purvey for their food, 

And mince it for the odious brood ? 

— The eagle wink'd, and drooped his wing, 

Scarce to the dusky bolt could cling. 

And look'd as if he thought his lord 

A captain with a wooden sword ; 

While Juno's bird display'd on high 

The thousand eyes of jealousy. 

Hermes look'd arch, and Venus leer'd ; 

Minerva bridled, Momus sneer'd ; 

Poor Hebe trembled, simple lass, 

And spilt the wine and broke the glass. 

Jove felt the weather rather rough. 

And thought long since 't had blown enough : 

His knife and fork, unused, were cross'd, 

His temper and his dinner lost ; 

For ere the vesper peal was done, 

The viands were as cold as stone* 

This Venus saw, and grieved to see ; 

For though she thought Jove rather free^ 

Yet, at his idle pranks she smiled. 

As wanderings qI a h^art beguil'd ; 



430 rOEMS. 

Nor wondered if astray he run, 
For well she knew her *scape-grace son ; 
And who can hope his way to find, 
When blind, and guided by the blind ? 
Her finger to her brow she brought, 
And gently touched the source of thought^ 
The unseen fountain of the brain, 
Where fancy breeds her shadowy train : 
The vows that ever were to last, 
But wither ere the lip they've pass'd ; 
The secret hope, the secret fear, 
That heaves the sigh, or prompts the tear 5 
The ready turn, the quick disguise, 
That cheats the lover's watchful eyes ; 
So from the rock, the sorcerer's wand 
The gushing waters can command ; 
So quickly started from the mind, 
The lucky thought she wished to find. 
Her mantle round her then she threw. 
Of twilight made, of modest hue ; 
The warp by mother night was spun. 
And shot athwart with beams of sun. 
But beams first dawn through murky air. 
To spunge the gloss, and dim the glare .; 
Thus gifted with a double charm. 
Like love 'twas secret and 'twas warm^ 
It was the very same she wore 
On Simois' banks, when, long beforej 
The sage Anchises form'd the plan 
Of that so brave and god-like man, 
Whose fame o'er-topp'd the topmast star, 
For arts of peace and deeds of war ; 
So famed for fighting and for praying, 
For courting warm, and cool betraying ; 
Who show'd poor Dido, all on fire. 
That Cyprus was not far from Tyre ; 
The founder of Hesperian hopes. 
Sire of her demi-gods and popes. 
And now her car the Paphian queen 
Ascends, her car of sea-bright green^ 
Her graces slim with golden locks 
Sat smilifig on the dicky boXj 



FOEMS. 431 

Wliile Cupid waotons with a sparrow 

That perched upon the urchin's arrow. 

She gives the word, and through the sky 

Her doves th' according pinions ply. 

As bounding thought, as glancing light, ^ 

So swift they wing their giddy flight ; 

They pass the wain, they pass the sun, 

The comet's burning train they shun. 

Lightly they skim the ocean vast. 

And touch the Lemnian isle at last. 

Here Venus checks their winged speed, 

And sets them free to rest or feed ; 

She bids her Graces sport the while. 

Or pick sweet posies round the isle, 

But cautions them against mishaps. 

For Lemnos is the ' Isle of Traps ; ' 

* Beware the lure of vulgar toys. 

And fly from bulls and shepherd's boys.* 

A cloud of smoke that climbs the sky 
Bespeaks the forge of Vulcan nigh ; 
Thither her way the goddess bends, 
Her darling son her steps attends, 
Led by the sigh that Zephyr breathes, 
When round her roseate neck he wreathes. 
The plastic god of fire i^ found, 
His various labours scatter'd round : 
Unfinish'd bars, and bolb, and portals. 
Cages for gods and chains for mortals ; 
'Twas iron work upon commission, 
For a romance's first edition. 
Soon as the beauteous queen he spied, 
A sting of love, a sting of pride, 
A pang of shame, of faith betray'd. 
By turns his labouring breast invade ; 
But venus quell'd them with a smile, 
That might a wiser god beguile ; 
'Twas mixed with shame, 'twas mixed with love, 
To mix it with a biush she strove. 
With hobbling step he comes to greet 
The faithless guest with welcome meet : 



433 POEMS, 

Pyracmon saw the vanquish'd god. 
And gives to Steropes the rod j 
He winks to Brontes as to say, 
" We may be just as well away. 
They ve got some iron in the fire,** 
So all three modestly retire. 

" And now, sweet Venus, tell," he cries, 
" What cause has brought thee from the skies t 
Why leave the seat of mighty Jove ? 
Alas ! 1 fear, it was not love. 
What claim to love could Vulcan boast, 
An outcast on an exile coast, 
Condemn'd in this sequestered isle. 
To sink beneath unseemly toil ? 
'Tis not for me to lead the war, 
Or guide the day's refulgent car ; 
Tis not for me the dance to twine, 
'Tis not for me to court the Nine ; 
No vision whispers to my dream, 
No muse inspires my wakeful theme ; 
No string, responsive to my art. 
Gives the sweet note that thrills the heart : 
The present is with gloom o'ercast, 
And sadness feeds upon the past. 
Say,then, for ah ! it can't be love, 
What cause has brought thee from above ? 
So spoke the god in jealous mood. 
The wily goddess thus pursued : 
" And canst thou, Vulcan, thus declinCj 
The meeds of praise so justly thine ? 
To whom, the fav'rite son of heaven, 
The mystic powers of fire are given ; 
That fire that feeds the star of night. 
And fills the solar beam with light ; 
That bids the stream of life to glow 
Thro' air, o'er earth, in depths below : 
Thou deignest not to court the Nine, 
Nor yet the mazy dance to twine ; 
But these light gifts of verse and song 
To humbler natures must belong ; 



POEMS. 433 



Behold yon oak that seems to reign 

*rhe monarch of the subject plain, 

No flowers beneath his arms are found. 

To bloom and fling their fragrance round 

Abash'd in his o'ernhelming shade, 

Their scents must die, their leaves must fade. 

Thou dost not love through wastes of war. 

Headlong to drive the ensanguin'd car, 

And sweep whole millions to the grave ; 

Thine is the nobler art to save : 

Form'd by thy hand, the temper'd shield 

Safe brings the warrior from the field ; 

Ah ! couldst thou then the mother see, 

Her ev'ry thought attached to thee ! 

Kot the light love that lives a day. 

Which its own sighs can blow away ; 

But fix'd and fervent in her breast, 

The wish to make the blesser bless'd. 

Then give thy splendid lot its due, 

And view thyself as others view. 

Great sure thou art, when from above, 

I come a supplicant from Jove ; 

For Jove himself laments like thee, 

To find no fate from sufF'ring free : 

Dire is the strife when Juno rails. 

And fierce the din his ear assails. 

In vain the festive board is crown'd, 

Ko joys at that sad board are found ; ' 

And when the storm is spent at last. 

The dinner's cold, and Jove must fast. 

Could'st thou not then with skill divine, 

For every cunning art is thine, 

Contrive some spring, some potent chaiDj 

That might an angry tongue restrain. 

Or find, at least, some mystic charm. 

To keep the sufierer's viands warm ? 

Should great success thy toils befriend. 

What glory must the deed attend ! 

What joy through all the realms above! 

What high rewards from grateful Jove I 



55 



434 POEMS, 

How bless'd could I behold thee rise 

To thy lost station in the skies ; 

How sweet ! should vows thou may'st have thought 

Or lightly kept, or soon forgot, 

Which wayward fates had seerti'd to sever, 

Their knots retie, and bind forever !'* 

She said and sigh'd, or seem'd to sigh, 
And downward cast her conscious eye, 
To leave the god more free to gaze— - 
Who can withstand the voice of praise ? 
By beauty charm'd, by flatt'ry won, 
Each doubt, each jealous fear is gone ; 
No more was bow'd his anxious head, 
His heart was cheer'd, he smil'd, and said : 
*' And could'st thou vainly hope to find 
A power the female tongue to bind ? 
Sweet friend ! 'twere easier far to drain 
The waters from the unruly main. 
Or quench the stars, or bid the sun 
No more his destined courses run ; 
By laws as old as earth or ojcean, 
That tongue has a perpetual motion, 
Which marks the longitude of speech ; 
To curb its force no pow'r can reach : 
Its privilege is raised above 
The sceptre of imperial Jove. 
Thine other wish, some mystic charm 
To keep the sufferer's viands warm, 
I know no interdict of fate, 
Which says that art mayn't warm a plate. 
The model, too, I've got for that, 
I take it from thy gipsy hat ; 
I saw thee thinking o'er the past, 
I saw thine eye-beam upward cast, 
I saw the concave catch the ray. 
And turn its course another way ; 
Reflected back upon thy cheek, 
It glow'd upon the dimpled sleek." 

The willing task was soon begun, 
And soon the grateful labour done ; 



POEMS. 435 



The oar, obedient to his hand, 
Assumes a shape at his command ; 
The tripod base stands firm below, 
The burnish'd sides ascending grow ; 
Divisions apt th' interior bound, 
With vaulted roof the top is crown'd. 
The artist, amorous and vain. 
Delights the structure to explain, 
To show how rays converging meet, 
And light I's gather'd into heat. 
Within its verge he flings a rose, 
Behold how fresh and fair it glows ; 
O'erpower'd by heat now see it waste, 
Like vanish'd love its fragrance past ! 
Pleased with the gift, the Paphian queen 
Remounts her car of sea-bright green ; 
The gloomy god desponding sighs 
To see her car ascend the skies. 
And strains its less'ning form to trace. 
Till sight is lost in misty space, 
Then sullen yields his clouded brain, 
To converse with habitual pain. 
The goddess now arrived above. 
Displays the shining gift of love, 
And shows fair Hebe how to lay 
The plates of gold in order gay. 
The gods and goddesses admire 
The labour of the god of fire, 
And givQ it a high-sounding name, 
Such as might hand it down to fame, 
If 'twere to us weak mortals giv'n, 
To know the names of things in heav'n ^ 
But on our sublunary earth 
We have no words of noble birth, 
And even our bards in loftiest lays. 
Must use the populace of phrase. 
However cali'd it may have been, 
For many a circling year 'twas seen 
To glitter at each rich repast, 
As Ipng as heaven was doomM to last. 



436 POEMS. 

But faithless lord — and angry wife- 
Repeated faults— re-kindled strife— 
Abandoned all domestic cares — 
To ruin sunk their own aflfairs— 
The immortals quit the troubled sky. 
And down for rest and shelter fly ; 
Some seek the plains, and some the woods. 
And some the brink of foaming floods : 
Venus, from grief religious grown, 
Endows a meeting-house in town ; 
And Hermes fills the shop next door 
With drugs far brought, a healthful store! 
What fate the Graces fair befel 
The muse has learn'd, but will not telL 
To try and make afflictions sweeter, 
Momus descends and lives with Peter ; 
Tho' scarcely seen the external ray. 
With Peter all within is day, 
For there the lamp by nature giv'n 
Was fed with sacred oil from Heav'n, 
Condemned a learned rod to rule, 
Minerva keeps a Sunday school. 
With happier lot the god of day 
To Brighton wings his minstrel way ; 
There come, a master touch he flings, 
With flying hand, across the strings ; 
Sweet flow the accents soft and clear. 
And strike upon a kindred ear. 
Admitted soon a welcome guest. 
The god partakes the royal feast ; 
Pleased to escape the vulgar throng. 
And find a judge of sense and song. 

Meantime, from Jove's high tenement 
To auction every thing is sent ; 
Oh grief! to auction here below I 
The gazing crowd admire the show, 
Celestial beds, imperial screens, 
Busts, pictures, lustres, bright tureens. 



POEMS. 437 



With kindling zeal the bidders vie, 
The dupe is spurr'd by puffers sly, 
And many a splendid prize knock'd down 
Is sent to many a part of town ; 
But all that's most divinely great 

Is borne to 's in street ; 

Th' enraptured owner loves to trace 
Each prototype of heav'nly grace, 
In every utensil can find 
Expression, gesture, action, mind ; 
Now burns with generous zeal to teach 
That lore which he alone could reach, 
And gets, lest pigmy words might flag, 
A glossary from Brobdignag ; 
To preach in prose, or chant in rhyme. 
Of furniture the true sublime. 
And teach the ravish'd world the rules 
For casting pans and building stools. 
Poor Vulcan's gift among the rest 
Is sold, and decks a mortal feast, 
Bought by a goodly alderman. 
Who lov'd his plate and lov'd his can ; 
And when the feast his worship slew, 
His lady sold it to a jew. 
From him, by various chances cast, 
Long time from hand to hand it past ; 
To tell them all would but prolong 
The ling'ring of a tiresome song ; 
Yet still it look'd as good as new. 
The wearing prov'd the fabric true : 
Now mine, perhaps by fate's decree. 
Dear Lady R— , I send it thee ; 
And when the giver's days are told. 
And when his ashes shall be cold, 
May it retain its pristine charm. 
And keep with thee his mem'ry warm ! 



438 POEMS. 

THE GREEN SPOT THAT BLOOxMS o'eR THE DESERT OF LIFE. 

Jl Song. 

O'er the desert of life, where you vainly pursued 

Those phantoms of hope which their promise disown, 
Have you e'er met some spirit divinely endued, 

That so kindly could say. You dont suffer alone ? 
And however your fate may have smiled or have frown'd. 

Will she deign still to share as the friend or the wife ? - 
Then make her the pulse of your heart ; for you've found 

The green spot that blooms o'er the desert of life. 



Does she love to recal the past moments so dear, 

When the sweet pledge of faith was confidingly given, 
When the lip spoke the voice of Affection sincere, 

And the vow was exchanged and recorded in Heaven/' 
Does she wish to rebind what already was bound, 

And draw closer the claim of the friend and the wife / 
Then make her the pulse of your heart : for you've found 

The green spot that blooms o'er the desert of life. 



THE POOR MAN'S LABOUR. 
./3 Song. 

My mother wept— -the stream of pain 

Flowed fast and chilly from her brow ; 
My father pray'd, nor pray'd in vain, 

Sweet mercy cast a glance below. 
Mine husband dear, the sufferer cried. 

My pains are o'er — behold your son ! 
Thank Heaven- sweet partner, he replied. 

The poor boy's labour is then begun, 

Alas ! the hapless life she gave 
By fate was doom'd to cost her own ; 

Soon, Soon, she found an early grave, 
Nor stay'd her partcer long alone ; 



POEMS. 439 



But left their orphan here below, 
A stranger wild beneath the sun, 

This lesson sad to learn from woe, 
The poor man's labour is never done. 

No parent's hand, with pious care, 

My childhood's devious path to guide. 
Or bid my vent'rous soul beware 

The griefs that smote on every side. 
'Twas still a round of changing woe, 

Woe never ending, still begun. 
That taught my bleeding heart to know, 

The poor man's labour is never done. 

Soon dies the falt'ring voice of fame ; 

The vows of love too warm to last. 
And friendship, what a faithless dream ! 

And wealth, how soon thy glare is past ! 
Yet still one hope remains to save — 

The longest course must once be run, 
And in the shelter of the grave 

The poor man's labour must be done. 



THE MERIDIAN IS PAST. 

The meridian is past, and the comfortless west 
Now calls the dull evening of life to repose ; 

Say then, thou worn heart, why not yield thee to rest, 
Or why court the return of thy joys or thy woes ? 

If thy noon-tide affection so coldly was paid 

With whate'er it possess'd, or of warmth or of light. 

Say what canst thou hope when thou sink'st to the shade, 
But in vain to lament by the cold star of night ? 

Or perhaps thou but wishest those hours to review,' 
Which so deeply thy pains and thy pleasures could move, 

When hope flattering hope ! to thy passion untrue, 
Call'd the soft voice of friendship the sweet note of love. 



440 POEMS. 

Oh then let fond mem'ry recal every scene, 
Every word, look, or gesture, that touch'dthee the most ; 

Let her tears, where 'tis faded, refresh the faint green. 
And though joy may escape, let no suflf 'ring be lost ! 

Let each precious remembrance be cherish'd with care. 
Let thy inmost recess be their consecrate shrine ; 

Let the form too of her, so ador'd, be found there, 
Such as friendship may wonder how love could resign ! 

And when oft the lone mourner her image reviews^ 
Let her eye scorn to fill, or her bosom to heave ; 

And, if infidel love to believe shall refuse. 
Be thou once more a dupe, and let fancy deceive ! 



''he following are the nnrevised fragments of a poem, the last that Mr, 
Curran meditated ^ and which death prevented his completing, 

TO MRS. FORTY. 

THE DISPENSER OF THE V^TATERS AT CHELTENHAM. 

Hail. Madam Forty ! thou whose name 
From pole to pole is blown by fame ; 
From where, by light of eastern ray, 
Phoebus drives on the car of day, 
To where he ties his evening cap, 
And sleeps or dreams on Tithy's lap ; 
Who chides his long delay since morn, 
Yet kindly greets his late return. 
Phoebus, to whom alone belong 
The gifts of medicine, light, and song ; 
Who made for thee th^ Hygeian source. 
And gave thee to dispense its force. 

Behold the goodly alderman, 
That dearly loves his plate and can. 
With rosy gills, and luscious eye, 
That lives to eat, and eats to die ; 
That fills the compass of his frame 
With every thing that bears the name 



POEMS. 441 



Which Adam gave ; each bird that flies, 
Each fish that cleaves the nether skies. 
Such various elements ajar 
The vast alembic fill with war ; 
The hot, the cold, the sweet, the sour, 
By turns submit, by turns o'erpow'r ; 
And still, in this intestine strife. 
Some victor enemy of life. 
Unless a stronger hand should save, 
Would mark the victim for the grave. 
But Phoebus saw those griefs of man, 
And kindly form'd a healing plan : 
He chose a spot where many a hill 
Sends down its tributary rill ; 
Whose bosom stores the beam profuse 
Of summer's sun for winter's use ; 
There, in the secret womb of earth. 
By chemic fire matured to birth, 
Each antidote, each anodyne, 
Their various qualities combine ; 
Till, from the reservoir below. 
They learn to swell, to rise, to flow. 
The god beheld the gushing flood. 
And blest it, for he saw 'twas good. 
Then, for most mighty causes moving, 
His trusty cousin, loved and loving, 
In virtue of his pow'r supreme, 
He crowns thee Priestess of the stream. 

And now behold the ghastly band 
From Albion's isle or foreign land 
At footstep of thy throne appear, 
Their symptoms tell, their off''rings bear. 
With gracious pharmaceutic smile 
Received, how oft such looks beguile ! 
Form'd half of nature, half of art. 
The thinking head, the feeling heart. 
They hear thy mandate : * Quaflf 'the spring 
To-day ; to-morrow health will bring.* 

In anxious haste they try the charm 
Of * number four, a little warm' 



56 



443 POEMS. 

Mira retrieves her fading bloom. 
And basks in hope of joys to come. 
Chlorinda, snatched from pale disease, 
Once more assumes the power to please^ 
The faithful Strephon by her side.— 
His partner loved, his future bride, — 
With rapture marks how sickness flies — . 
How swims her step — how glance her eyes. 
He holds the watch, and she the glass : 
Both count the moments as they pass. 
In snow-white candour not ashamed ; 
And, blameless, fear not to he blamed. 
Oh, happy state I when souls thus draw 
lEach other, and where nature's law 1 
'Twas so of old, when father Adam 
Held converse pure with mother Madam '.- 
No act unseen, no secret thought. 
But all to candid view was brought. 
Then innocence was in her prime — 
No notion guilt, no deed was crime. 
Their hours, the woodland wilds among, 
Were given to prayer, to.love, to song. 
Or gathering posies side by side. 
One pick'd them, and the other tied ; 
No censuring folks to watch or mind 'em, 
• No fans were then, nor prudes behind 'em ; 

But all was undisguised and free. 
That birds, and beasts, and Heaven might see. 
Nothing in coy disguise they keep; 
Satan himself might take a peep. 

Nor yet, great Priestess, do the fair' 
Alone engross thy guardian care ; 
For man, all worthless though he be, 
Still praj'S, nor praj's in vain, to thee. 
Keturn'd from Ganges' crimson'd flood, 
Laden with gold, and bathed in blood ; 
His veins with sickly fluid fraught, 
The colour of the dross he sought ; 
Arm'd with the Gospel and the knife, 
The sting of death, the pledge of life ; 



POEMS. 443 



For love of Heaven the faith he soldj 
And butcher'd for the love of gold^ 
Yet even he can favour find, 
As if to vice or virtue blind, 
To pity and to spare you deign, 
And send him to his crimes again. 

But, Priestess, let the muse advise ; 
The present moment quickly flies. 
The magic song, the graceful air. 
The cestus'd waist, the glossy hair. 
These are not destined long to last, 
But fast they fade, and soon they're past. 
Apollo now is fond and kind ; 
But Jove himself has changed his mind. 
So Phoebus' beam, at morn how bright, 
How warm at noon, how cold at night ! 
Soon may some blow descend and sever : 
Occasion miss'd is lost for ever. 
Rich boons he's granted : but remain 
Still richer, which thou may'st attain : 
Let him for thee nail up death's portal, 
And dub thee, by a word, immortal. 
To body now thy power confined ; 
Why not extend it to the mind ? 
Why not bestow some drastic art 
To purge the brain, and cleanse the heart ? 
How charm'd might then the world behold 
The blissful age of bloodless gold ! 
* * # * 

The British peer might come to scorn 
Fit wreaths the boxer to adorn ; 
Might cease to curb the harness'd steed, 
The whip resign, and learn to read. 
To court your shrine should Albion deign. 
What precious gifts she might obtain ! 
Richer than all her hoarded pelf — 
The precious gift — to know herself. 
Sullen, and cold, and dark, and dumb, 
And mantled in impervious gloom, 
She makes herself a standard measure, 
io virtue of ber tyrant pleasure : 



444 POEMS. 

Because the minstrel she can buy. 

She thinks to judge the minstrelsy. 

* * * *. 

The brain may think , the thought be told ; 
But to the neutral ear 'tis cold. 
If Heaven refuse the magic art 
Of song" to send it to the heart. 
This art, the richest gift of Heaven, 
To Albion's land was never given. 
Dull to her ear the matin lay 
That warbles from the morning spray ; 
But dear the charnel knell, so holy, 
So cheering, and so melancholy ! 
Who most is charm'd, how can you know ? 
Who wakes above, or sleeps below ? 

Oft has the Muse's harp been strung 
On Scotia's wilds, and sweet the song ! 
Echo floats down on passing time. 

And brings to Scott his birthright rhyme. 

^ ■» ie- it 

In Erin, too, the poet's fire 
Once warm'd the heart-strings of her lyre, 
When fervent he has sweli'd the strain 
With hope or love, nor sweli'd in vain ; 
Or, drooping o'er the warrior's grave. 
Who perish'd when he could not save, 
He sung the gallant deeds that sped 
His race of glory to the dead ; 
Nor left his crested helm untold, 
Nor sword that shone in burnish'd gold. 
But that sword, once the hero's pride. 
Rusts in the coffin by his side. 
Yet sweet his fate ! No more he hears 
His country's groan, nor sees her tears ; 
No more he counts his kindred slain. 
Nor sickens at the stranger chain ; 
And though the ruffian hand may wrest 
The kerchief from his darling's breast. 
Whether she weeps, or shrinks, or flies, 
Or fills deaf Heaven with fruitless cries, 
Or screams for succour to the dead, 
And clasps the stone that marks h^s head^ 



POEMS. 445 



It stirs no pulse — it gives no breath — 
He hears it not— he sleeps in death. 

Such is the song of early time, 
And such the ^oul it gives to rhyme ; 
Such is the knot that to the past 
The present ties, and makes time last. 

But, wheresoe'er the Briton roam. 

No song can spring the thought of home. 

He cannot say, " Oh, bard divine I 

Repeat that lay, that lay is mine. 

Oft has it heaved my infant breast — 

Oft sooth'd my infant cares to rest. 

Then once again, oh, bard divine ! 

Repeat it, for the lay is mine." 

* * * * 

Art may be learnt, and wisdom taught, 

And taste depraved but never bought. 

Yet see approach the motley train. 

Cringing, yet bold— and vile, though vain; 

The dregs of Italy and France ; 

Venders of song, and Just, and dance. 

The chaplet fades on Kembie's brow ; 

The soul of Young foTg:ets to glow ; 

And Kean- the honey-moon of fame 

Scarce past— forswears the bridal name. 

But Catalani sneers aud mocks 

Th' unlist'ning babble of the box. 

The money, not the praise, she prizes, 

And smiles, and curtsies, and despises. 

The cockney dame, well pleased the while, 

Nods knowing, and gives back the smile : — 

*'Here, ma'am, no English harsh and coarse 

Grates on our ear, still worse and worse. 

But interjections soft — Oh Dio ! 

Or murm'ring sweet, bel idol mio ! 

No facts perplex — for what, or why, 

Or who ?- the Briton scorns to pry. 

There Mr. *Kemble twits his mother 

About some nonsense with her brother, 

As if a high-born people cares 

About mere family affairs. 

It hurts the mr>.,i)ers of the age 

To bring such subjects on the stage ; 



446 POEMS. 

But on the dear Italian scene 

Such horrors cannot intervene ; 

To ear and eye the charm confined, 

Obtrudes no labour on the mind ; 

While fancy feeds on visions bright, 

Formed, not of objects, but of light ; 

This is the tone of recreation 

That best befits a thinking nation : 

And, while such arts their station keep, 

Otway may starve, and Shakspeare sleep.** 
* * * :¥ 

Nor have we bought their song alone ; 

Their ballet has become our own : 

The tender babe now learns what mean 

The tactics of the waltz obscene — 

The irony of attitude, 

That blends the wanton with the prude — ' 

The changeful neck — the hinting look 

Of coy advance, or arch rebuke — 

The dizzy round, that lifts in air 

The dress, and flings the body bare, 

All helpless to th' uuhallow'd stare i 

The sponsor at the font of vice, 

And pandar at the sacrifice — 

The mother, in the infant's name, 

Plights the vow of guilt and shame ; 

Her quick'ning glances teach to blow 

The buds of folly and of woe. 

Poor child ! she knows not yet " what's whaf,'= 

But with God's grace, she'll come to that : 

Just like a telegraph she makes 

The signs, nor yet the news partakes. 



^ 



># 



•*' 



APPENDIX 



The following fragment of a religious essay, written when Mr. Curran 
considered himself as destined for the church, rnay gratify the curiosity of 
some. It has (ew claims to originality, but it is not uninstructive to show 
that the originality which subsequently distinguished him was as much the 
reward of cultivation as a gift of nature. 

" If we reflect a little on the strange manner in which most of our fel- 
low travellers conduct themselves in this journey through life, we cannot 
wonder that the perverseness of human nature has been, in all ages, a stand- 
ing subject of reproach, or of ridicule. The way at best is tedious and 
distressing, difficult to tread, obscured with clouds, and perplexed with 
thorns. But it is certain that man, ever ready to torment himself, has, by 
his own inventive discontent, created a set of grievances more formidable 
and more numerous than those which nature or Providence designed that he 
should suffer; instead of alleviating such evils as we cannot avoid, by con-* 
solation drawn from the blessings which we or our neighbours enjoy, we 
follow a course directly contrary ; we strive to place our own condition in 
the most unfavourable point of view ; we endeavour, with an ingratitude 
equally impious and absurd, to extinguish every light, and to exaggerate every 
shade in the picture ; the favours that Providence has heaped upon us, more 
abundantly than perhaps we deserve, we arrogantly account the sparing re- 
ward of our deserts, and murmur at those corrections which, in general, 
are less proportioned to our demerits than to the tenderness and compassion 
of that Being who remembers mercy in his punishments; and if we turn 
our eyes to the situations of those around us, we are too apt, instead ot 
soothing their afflictions, and rejoicing in their happiness, to overlook the 
former, and to pervert the latter, into a source not of congratulation and 
pleasure, but o( jealousy and discontent. As for those who owe their 
wretchedness to so monstrous a depravity as this, they are justly punished 
by the consequences of their own unworthiness ; they are objects rather of 
horror than of pity. But there are others equally unhappy, from a cause 
less criminal, and of course more pitiable; they have hearts that can glow 
with transport at the good fortune of their fellow creatures, or bleed for 
their distresses ; but from a despondency of spirit, or too keen a sensibil- 
ity, they sink under every evil that befals themselves, whether it arises 
from the reality of things or the timorous exaggerations of fancy ; they are 
miserable, not because they are wicked, but b(.cause they -are not wise. 
To them every thing wears a melancholy aspect ; they behold human life 
through a medium that magnifies or distorts every object ; they consider it 
as subject to perpetual disasters which they cannot avoid, and which they 
are unable to endure ; they lift their eyes to the train of ills that infest It 5 

57 



450 APPENDll, 

tliey discover a dreadi'ul array of pain, poverty, sickness, and they are 
filled with anguish at the prospect ; they cannot bear, with patience, that 
their own repose should lie at the mercy of the vices and follies of a cor- 
rapt world, and that human happiness should be supported by so slender a 
thread, as every adverse wiuJ of fortune may endanger or destroy. Those 
people have formed an imaginary, and consequently a mistaken, standard 
of perfection, by which they judge the designs and the works of their Cre- 
ator. In the most ordinary piece of mechanism, we see how impossible it 
is to form any opinion of its excellence or imperfection, unless we are pre- 
viously acquainted with the priticiples on which it is formed, and the uses 
it is intended to answer ; and yet we daily hear men, with the utmost con- 
fidence, proiiounce a judgment on this complicated system of ihings, of 
which they are but an iiiconsiderable part, and of which it is impossible 
they should have any adequate conception. Strange infatuation 1 as if an. 
atom could measure the boundless region of immensity, or the creature 
comprehend the infinite wisdom of his Creator. Man views the world as 
if it had been contrived for no other purpose than his convenience 5 lost and 
bewildered in the labyrinths of Providence, he blames the want of design, 
because the narrowness of his understanding is unable to reach it ; assu- 
mintj the little corner to which his vision is confined as the centre of things, 
he exclaims against those fancied irregularities which arise from the dim- 
ness of his sight, or the disadvantage of his situation: lie exclaims that 
the earth he inhabits is deformed with rocks and mountains ; but a little at- 
tention would discover to him, that besides being subservient to many 
things necessary to our well-being, those inequalities no longer are visible, 
when the spectator is removed to a proper distance from the object ; he 
complains that the moral system is equally full of disproportion and en- 
ormity ; but he will not always so restrain his impatience as to inquire 
into the causes of those appearances, to justify and adore, as far as he can 
discern, and to supply the defects of his sight, by the implicitness of his 
faith and his resignation. That we are absolutely dependent on the will 
of that Being who has placed us here should, perhaps, be of itself a suf- 
ficient inducement to the most unmurmuring acquiescence under his dis- 
pensations ; but the all-gracious Deity has in this, as well as in every other' 
instance, kindly united our pleasure and our duty : ever readier to advise 
than to impose, to persuade than to commend, he would rather engage us 
as his children to pursiie our own happiness, than oblige us as his creatures 
to submit ourselves to his will. He does not, therefore, say to us — * I have 
enjoined, and ye must obey ; I have inflicted, and ye must suffer ?' but he 
invites the heart that is wou tided by distress, and the mind that is labour- 
ing under uncertainty, to approach hi ^i with reverence and assurance of 
his mercy ; to gain wisdom by considering his works, and comfort by receiv- 
ing liis promises. Let us then avail ourselves of this permission 5 let us 
take a view of the conduct of Providence towards us, with respect to our 
p)esent state and cur future destination; and let us do it with that awful 
respect that is due to the greatness of our Maker, and the gratitude we owe 
to his benevolence; and if we enter upon this inquiry with the candour 
«nd niodesty that becomes us, we will find that he has concealed nothing 
from us which it concerns us to know, and that, though our powers are not 
formed to pervade and to com-.rehen j the ways and the designs of infinite 
wisdom, we may yet discover enough to make us admire the goodness of 



APPENDIX. 45J 

our Creator, to render us obedient to Iiis laws, to reconcile us to the seem- 
ing difficulties of our situation in this life, and to stimulate us to every ex- 
ertion that may approve us deserving of a better. 

" As to the present condition of human existence, we are sufficiently 
assured that this life is only a preliminary stage of being, preparatory for, 
and introductory to, an higher and a more perfect one. Had man been en- 
dued with no superiority above the other works of the divine Architect that 
surround him, he might, like them, attain to this high and more perfect 
state, by the necessary progress of his own nature, by a sort of vegetative 
increase, as a plant advances from seed to maturity. The more ordinary 
parts of the creation are produced for no purpose that relates to them- 
selves ; they are impelled in their progress lo maturity by a necessary and 
unconscious impulse : they grow, tjiey flourish, and they fade, alike insen- 
sible of their improvement or decay. But man, formed for the most glo- 
rious purposes, in all which he is intimately, if not entirely, concerned, de- 
signed to outlive the wreck of time, and to enjoy or to sufter a never-end- 
ing duration, and animated by a soul that may aspire and attain to the most 
exalted perfection, should travel on to his destination with a nobler guide 
than brutal instinct or blind necessity, those substitutes of discernment in 
the beast that perishes, or the plant that withers. In proportion as he is 
raised eminently above those, so must the motives and principles of his con- 
duct be more elevated, more worthy of the rank he holds ; they must be 
driven forward to the endjthey are designed for by an impulse from with- 
out ; he must determine ^is actions to a certain point, by an efibrt froai 
within. Reduced by his w^ants and his weakness to an absolute depen- 
dence on his Maker, and to consequent necessity of submitting to his laws, 
he is rendered capable of receiving those laws, by a reason to inquire, and 
a will left at liberty to follow the dictates of his understanding ; but strong- 
ly impelled by his appetites and desires, he is incessantly actuated to seek' 
his own happiness. And here we cannot but admire the wisdom and good- 
ness of God. Had our obedience to him required one course of conduct 
and our own well-being another, we might have been eternally perplexed 
between such incompatible objects; we must, in that case, have been re- 
duced to the wretched alternative of being either miserable or rebellious; 
but the all-bountiful Being, studiously solicitous for the happiness of 
those he has made, has removed this embarrassment by making our 
allegiance and our desire of happiness mutual incentives, mutual 
strengtheners and supporters of each other, and confirming our duty to hiui 
by our duty to ourselves. If we conform ourselves to the rules he has pre- 
scribed, we will enjoy happiness as at once the rev/ard of our merit, and 
the necessary consequence of it, because those rules contain nothing in 
♦hem that is not indispensably necessary for preserving us, and advancing 
is to that degree of perfection which we are formed to attain. But while 
we adore the benevolence of God, in thus solicitously consulting our plea- 
<!ure and advantage, we may also observe, that the most exalted privilege 
)f our nature, and the most extraordinary instance of his bounty, may be- 
come the source of affliction to mankind. Nor should this reflection dimin- 
ish our gratitude for the blessing, when we consider how the best things, if 
perverted to other purposes than they were intended to answer, degenerate 
into the most pernicious ; and when we also consider how much it is in 
our power to avoid this perversion in the present case. The object of 



453 



APPENDIX. 



man's pursuit is happiness. His Maker and his reason inform him that 
he can acquire it only bv following the rules prescribed to him by both. 
But man's will is freej'^he is therefore at liberty to neglect or to pursue 
these means, and of consequence to fail or to succeed in the end. He may 
also choose not to be virtuous : and should he so deprave himself he must 
submit to unhappiness, not only as the punishment incurred by disobeying 
his Maker, who perhaps may suspend his vengeance over the ungrateful of- 
fender, or defer it till some future stale of existence, but also as the inevit- 
able consequence of violating the rules necessary to the preservation and 
perfection of his nature, which, as being a natural effect cannot possibly be 
remote, but must flow immediately from its cause. 

***** #*** 



MR, GRATTAN'S LETTER.* 

"Dublia, July 1, 1797. 
*^ TO MY FELLOW CITIZENS OF DUBLIN. 

" I THANK you for past favours ; I have found in you a kind and 
gracious master ; you have found in me an unprofitable servant : unde 
that impression, 1 beg to assure you, that so Ipng as the present state 
of representation in the commons house continues, so long must I re 
spectfully decline the honour of soliciting at your hands a seat in that as 
sembljr. 

" On this principle it was I withdrew from parliament, together witl 
those with whom I act; and I now exercise my privilege, and discharge 
jmy duty in communicating with my constituents, at the eve of a gen 
cral election, some say an immediate dissolution, when I am to rende 
back a trust, which, until parliament shall be reformed, I do not aspire t< 
reassume. The account of the most material parts of my conduct, to 
gether with the reason of my resolution, will be the subject of this lettei 

" When I speak of my conduct, I mean that adopted in common am 
in concert with the other gentlemen. We should have felt ourselves deffi 
eient in duty if we had not made one effort before the close of the parlia 
ment, for the restoration of domestic peace, by the only means by which 
seemed attainable — conciliation ; and if we had not submitted our opinions^ 
however fallible, and our anxieties, however insignificant, on a subject 
which in its existence shook your state, and in its consequences must 
shake the empire. Our opinion was, that the origin of the evil, the source 
of the discontent, and the parent of the disturbance was to be traced to an 
ill-starred and destructive endeavour on the part of the minister of the 
crown, to give to the monarch a power which the constitution never intend- 
ed; to render the king in parliament every thing, and the people nothing 5 
and to work the people completely out of the house of commons, and in 
their place to seat and establish the chief magistrate absolute and irresis- 
tible. It appeared to us that a minister guilty of such a crime is as much 
a traitor to the constitution, as the people would be to the king if they 
should advance in arms, and place their leader on the throne : more guilty 

* Referred to in the note to page 362 



APPENDIX. 453 

of treason in equity and justice, because in them it would be lonly rebel- 
lion against their creature — the king ; but in the other it would pe rebellion 
against his creator — the people. It occurred to us that in this country the 
offence would be still higher, because in this country it woulij be the in- 
troduction not only of a despotic, but of a foreign yoke, and tl^ revival of 
that great question which in 1782 agitated this country, and which, till your 
parliament shall be reformed, must agitate this country forever. We 
thought no Irishman — we were sure no honest Irishman, wonld ever be 
in heart with government, so long as the parliament of this country shall 
be influenced by the cabinet of England ; and were convinced tliat the peo- 
ple would not be the more reconciled to a foreign yoke, bec^uie re-im- 
posed by the help of their own countrymen : as long as they tljink this to 
be the case, we were convinced they will hate the administraticb, and the 
administration will hate them. On this principle we recollected the par- 
liament of this country pledgfd their lives and fortunes in 1782, though 
some seem to have thought better of it since, and are ready to p,«dge their 
lives and fortunes against this principle. We could not seriously believe 
that the people of Ireland were ready to resist the legislative usiprpation of 
the British parliament, in whose station the greatness of the tyipnt would 
have qualified the condition of the slave, and that the same people were 
now ready to prostrate themselves to the legislative usurpation cf another 
body — a British cabinet-^,T, hiimjliaf ed, and a tame tyrant. We recollected 
to have heard that the rtvn<il3 of ministry had lamented that En^and had 
not acceded to the AVfc\can claim of exclusive legislature, a|id after- 
ward attempted to re-establish British dominion by influencing tlip Amers- 
can assembly. We saw the ministry pursue that very plan toward Ireland, 
which they regretted they had not resorted to in the case of America. We 
need not repeat the particulars ; but we saw the result to be on he mind 
of the people a deep-rooted and established discontent and jealoijsy ; and 
we conceived that whatever conspiracies existed, in any extent oi degree, 
proceeded from that original and parent conspiracy in the ministe)- to sub- 
vert the parliamentary constitution by the influence of the crowni It ap- 
peared to us that the discontent and disturbance so created was greatly in» 
creased by another cause — the treatment of his majesty's catholic inbjects. 
It is the business of the minister to observe the changes in the national spi- 
rit, as much as the changes of foreign combinations. It was the misfor- 
tune of our ministry that they never attended to those changes ; {hey did 
not perceive that the religious principle and temper, as well as the polit- 
ical, had undergone on the Continent, in America, and in Ireland, a fun- 
damental alteration ; that the example of America had had prodigious ef- 
fect on Europe ; the example and doctrine of Europe had had no eflect on 
America ; they did not see that in consequence of that cause, (there were 
other causes also) the Irish Catholic of 1792 did not bear the smallest re- 
semblance to the Irish Catholic of l692 ; that the influence of pope, priest, 
and pretender, were at an end. Other dangers and other influences might 
have arisen, new objects and new passions ; the mind of the people is ne- 
ver stationary — the mind of courts is often stagnant ; but those new dan- 
gers were to be provided against in a manner very different from the pro- 
visions made against the old. Indeed, the continuation of the old system 
of safety approximated and secured the new dangers : unfortunately our 
ministers did not think so j they thought, they said, that the Irish Catholic, 



454 APPENDIX. 



■ 



notwithstanding tlie American revolution, notwithstanding the French le? 
volution, religious as well as political, was still the bigot ot the last century : 
ihat with respect to him the age had sfood still 5 that he was not impressed 
with the neiv spirit of liberty, but still moped under the old spirit of big- 
otry, and Biminated on the triumph of the cross, the power of catholic 
hierarchy, (Jie riches of the catholic clergy, and the splendour of the catho- 
lic church., You will find the speeches of the catholic opponents, particu- 
larly the nllnisterial declaimers, dream on in this manner; and you will 
find from tiie publications of those speeches and of the Catholics, that the 
latter had aid aside their prejudices, but that the ministers had not: and 
one of tilecauses why those ministers alleged that the catholic mind had 
jiiot advanced, was, that their own mind had stood still; the state was the 
bigol, and the people the philosopher. The progress of the human mind 
in the coufse of the last twenty-five j^oars has been prodigious in Ireland. 
I remember when there scarcely appeared a publicf'tion in a newsp'aper of 
any degree of merit, which was not traced to some person of note on the 
part of ga'^ernraent or the opposition ; but now a multitude of very pow- 
erful publications appear from authors entirel}' unknown, of profound and 
spirited itwest!g;atioii. There was a time when all learning in Europe was 
fToniined t> the clergy .; it then advanced among the higher orders of the 
laity, and now it has gone among the people ; and when once the powers 
«f intelle:t are possessed by the greut body of the nation, ^tis madness to 
Jjope to iijpose on that nation civil or relifrions op|>ression, particularly in 
those wlDse understandings have been static. nri?|/ though their power and 
riches have been progressive. The politics of the castle, with the religious 
feuds of Iceland had occupied and engrossed their mind; the eye of that mind 
or their intellectual vision, had become, of course, subtle indeed, but ex- 
tremely ittle; on the other hand, the politics of Europe and America bad 
occupied the mind of the people, and therefore the mind of the people had 
jbecome comprehensive ; and wiien the former complained of the press, they 
complaired of the superiority of the popular understanding. It appeared 
fo us that the best remedy was to raise the understanding of the great, by 
enlarging the sphere of its actions ; viz. reforming the parliament. But to re- 
turn. Tfce ministry, however, thought proper to persist in hostility to the ca- 
tholic boiy,on a false supposition of its bigotry : the consequence of such an 
attemptwas that the great body of the Catholics, I mean that part the most 
]>opular and energetic, disappointed, suspected. reviled, and wearied, united 
\?'iih that other great body of the reformers, and formed a Catholic, Presby- 
terian ard Protestant league, for the freedom of the religion, and the free and 
full representation of the people. Out of this league a new political religion 
arose, superseding in political matter all influence of priest and parson, and 
t)Dryingfor ever theological discord in the love of civil and political libert3\ 
This is at present in all political matters the Irish religion. What is the 
Irish religion ? Unanimity against despotism. Viewing the state of the 
r.ountryin this light, it appeared to us that tiie unconstitutional influence of 
the crown, and the proscription of the Catholics, were the fundamental 
causes of our discontent and jealousy : with these there existed, other dis- 
i'ontents, distinct from these causes; without these causes insignificant, 
but with these causes creating great agitation and disturbance. Two re- 
medies occurred — -coercion and conciliation : we opposed the former, and 
we proposed the latter. I will trouble you with our reasons : we con- 



APPENDIX. 455 

sJdered the system of coercion would in the first instance destroy the liberty 
of the people, and in the second instance would subvert the authority and 
powers of government. Here I be^r to recur to what I have just observed 
on the* necessity for those who administer a country, to advert to the changes 
that take place in the temper and understanding of the people. Unfortun- 
ately, the ministry provided for the purpose of making the people quiet and 
contented, a system of laws and proclamations, which, had they. been quiet 
before, would have rendered them distracted. I need not repeat them 5 
we all know liiem ; we had the barren office of giving fruitless opposition ; 
we saw a spirit of reform had gone forth ; it had conquered in America j 
it had conquered in France ; both here and in England it existed, and was 
chiefly nourished and propagated by the abuses of our government. It 
appeared to us that the best way of starving that spirit, was to remove its 
food; far otherwise the proposers of the plan of coercion; they thought 
it better to feed that spirit, and to cherish the abuses and increase them ; 
they hoped to fortify their constitution against an epidemic distemper, by 
preserving uncured the old gouts and rheumatisms, and a host of other dis- 
orders. The power of limited monarchy was not to be preserved by con- 
stitutional power, which is jts natural ally, but by despotic power, which is 
its natural death and dissolution. Instead of correcting the abuses of the 
state, they invented laws which were themselves an abuse, and proclama- 
tions which were an abuse also ; and which greatly, though silently, pro- 
pagated the new principle. There are two ways by which a new prin- 
ciple spreads ; one is by arms, and by martyrdom the other. The Ma- 
homedan religion was propagated by arms ; it pleased Providence that 
the Christian religion should have been propagated by the latter. See 
whether the unfortunate choice of our ministers has not given to the 
new principle the benefit of both : they have fled before it abroad, and they 
have trampled on it at home, and given it the double recommendation of 
conquest and martyrdom. This consideration was one of my objections 
to persist in the war with France on account of Brabant, and it is one of 
my objections to persist in a war with the Irish on account of venal bo- 
roughs. Had the government, instead of a<:gravating, restrained abuses, 
they would have put the state at the head of a spirit of relorm, which they 
could no longer resist, and could only hope to moderate; it was to such a 
policy adopted by Queen Elizabeth, that the Church of England owes 
principally what it retains of power and splendour, preserved by the gov- 
ernment of the country who took the lead in the reformation ; but ours 
fell into a different project, they armed cap-a-pie against a spirit which 
they could not confine by arms abroad nor by executions at home ; and, 
therefore, instead of being at the head of popular measures, they were at 
the tail of them ; in the Catholic question, in the place bill, in the pension 
bill, in every bill of a popular tendency, they resisted at first, they yield- 
ed at last, reluctantly and imperfectly, and then opposed, condemned, and 
betra3'ed the principle of their own acquiescence; they agreed to a place 
bill for instance, and then they multiplied places manifold. What is the 
bar bill or the bill that creates thirty new places for the gentlemen of the 
law ? They agreed to the first Catholic bill, and then proscribed the per- 
son of the Catholics, and oppose his freedom in cdrporatioiis ; they had 
before agreed to the establishment of the independency of the Irish par- 
liamentj and then had created a multitude of otiicers to make that indg« 



456 i APPENDIX. 

pendency a name. It is reported to have been said by some of the minis- 
ters of England that his majesty's reign has been to Ireland a course of 
concessiori, and it was much a subject of wonder that the people of Ireland 
should pei^sist in their dissatisfaction ; the answer to those ministers is ob- 
vious, the concessions were extorted from ministers by perseverance of op- 
position, aiid they were rendered abortive by the treachery of ministers. 
The recognition of our parliamentary rights has been rendered abortive 
by unexampled exertions of bribery and corruption ; the freedom of our 
trade by debt and war ; and the elective privileges of our Catholics by a 
course of personal persecution and corporate influence ; and, on the whole, 
the benefit/of constitutional laws by the administration of an unconstitutional 
governme^jt. When the ministers talk of their concessions to Ireland, do 
they knowlthe concessions of Ireland to them ? Do they know the debt of the 
war ? Confinue that rate of expense, and the English wars of the next centu- 
ry will have the same effect as the English prohibition of the last — they will 
annihilate the trade of Ireland. But to return to the administration. They re- 
lapsed intoj their violence when they recovered from their fears, and their sys- 
tem has beien therefore occasionally violent and weak, never strong and uni- 
form. It is an observation of Lord Bacon, that the fall of one of the Roman 
emperors was due not to his tyranny nor his relaxation, but to both, and that 
the fluctuating system is ever fatal ; it is an observation of the same, that 
the way to resist the progress of a new sect is to correct the abuses of the 
old ones. Unhappily our ministers differed from Bacon ; their system was 
faithful to no one principle, either of violence or concession. We object- 
ed that it could not now resort to unqualified violence without incurring all 
the objections belonging to a policy of submission coupled with a policy 
of violence, and that it could not hope to obtain the advantages appertain- 
ing to ehh^v. In pursuit of such a system the ministers seemed to us 
to have lost not only their discretion but their temper ; they seemed vex- 
ed with themselves for being angry; they seemed to become in a passion 
with themselves, because they had lost their temper with the people; in 
its struggle with popular rights, the state, like a furious wrestler, lost its 
breath as well as its dignity ; as if an angry father should lose his temper 
with his child, in which case the old fool is the most incorrigible. In the 
mean time the enemy seemed to understand our situation perfectly well, and 
relied on our expences for dissolving our credit, and our intemperance for 
dissolving our authority; and at the very time when we were precipitating 
on such measures at home, we were receiving the most melancholy com- 
mnnjcations from abroad; we saw the minister retreating from the enemy 
with as rapid a step as he advanced upon the people, going back, and 
backaiid back, while the democratic principles in Europe was getting on and 
on, like a mist at the heels of the countryman, small at first and lowly, 
but soon ascending to the hills and overcasting the hemisphere. Like the 
government we wished to provide against this storm, like th^e government 
we wish to diisarm the people ; as the best means of safety, we wished to 
disarm the people •, but it was by the only method by which a free peo- 
ple can be di«,armed— we wished to disarm the people of their grievances, 
and then theiir other arms, their less dangerous arms, the bayonet and even 
A \J ^^^'^'^ ^^ retained for no other use but the use of the government. 
A naked man oppressed by the state is an armed host. A few decent 
&»shopssent to the tower against law, produced the revoIiitioR. Mr. 



APPENDIX. 457 

Hampden, with the four other innocent persons, arraigned by Charles I. for 
high treason, produced the civil war; that grey-coated man or the green 
man sent on board a tender, or detained in prison without trial ; he, too, 
will have his political consequence. Sensible acts of violence have an 
epidemic force ; they operate by sympathy, they possess the air as it were, 
by certain tender influences, and spread the kindred passion through the 
whole of the communily. No wonder the difficulties have increased on 
the government. Sad experiment ! to blood the magistracy with the poor 
man's liberty, and employ the rich, like a pack of government blood- 
hounds, to hunt down the poor ! Acts of violence like these put an end to 
all law as well as liberty, or the affectation and appearance of either. In 
the course of the session we asked to what end all this } and accompanied 
our question by stating the enfeebled resources of the country. We had 
mentioned at the beginning that the debt of the war had been about 
5,000,000/. we were told it was an error. I wish it had been so 5 but, on 
examination, that sum appeared somewhat about the debt of the war. 
And it will appear, if the present loans are filled, that the debt of the war 
will be near 8,000,000/. We submitted the effects of the war on the re- 
sources of the country, and here again it was said we were in error. I 
wish we had been so ; but at what interest does the state borrow money ? 
an interest which, between man and man, would be usury, and nearly double 
the former rate. W^e mentioned the state of the revenue to have declined ; 
again were we contradicted; but what is the fact? what business is now 
done on the quay ? We did not wish to reveal the* wcana imperii, we 
stated nothing more than appeared from the terras proposed in the gasiette, 
from the returns of your custom-house, and the printed resolutions touch- 
ing the state of your manufactures ; and we stated those public facts, not 
to damp the public confidence in the defence of the country, but to abate 
a little of that frantic confidence manifested in a determination, at the 
hazard of her safety, to go on with a system of domestic coercion till the 
minister should conquer the people — and of foreign war till the same min- 
ister should achieve another conquest, at the risk of general ruin —till he 
should, sword in hand, recover Brabant. That minister has found it a 
more pressing experiment to defend Cork than to take Flanders, as the 
emperor has found it a safer experiment to abandon Flanders and Italy to 
gave Vienna. We mentioned those our objections to such folly then, and 
1 repeat them now, not to damp your zeal against a foreign enemy, but to 
confine the zeal of government to one enemy, and to deprecate a second 
enemv — our own people, and a civil war added to a foreign one. Such 
was the system of coercion. To oppose a remedy is easy, to propose one 
is difficult and anxious; it appeared to us that we should fail in duty and 
in candour, if when we resisted the project of government, we did not sub- 
mit a plan of our own, and the only plan that appeared to us to promise 
peace or prosperity was conciliation ; we proposed, accordingly, the eman« 
cipation of the Catholics and a reform in the commons house of parliament. 
To the first it was objected, that such a measure was irreconcileable with 
the safety of the king or the connexion with England. To the first ob- 
jection we answered, that the capacities of tl.ree-fourths of the people 
should not be made a personal compliment to his majesty, and that the 
pretence for taking away those capacities should not be the religion of his 
majesty's allies, of his present subjects of .Canada, of his late subjects of 
58 ' 



458 



APPENDIX. 



Corsica, ©f a considerable part of his fleet, and oi a great part of his ar^ 
roy ; that the principles that placed his family on the throne were those oi 
liberty ; and that his Irish subjects, if not convicted of felony, were enti- 
tled to the benefit of those principles ; and that the Catholics have, in jus- 
tice and reason j at least as good a right to liberty as his majesty has to the 
crown. We observed, that the only impediment to the Catholic claim, as 
the law now stands, was the oath requiring the abjuration of the worship 
of the Virgin Mary, and of the doctrine of the real presence ; that to make 
these points, at such a time as this, matter of alarm to the safety of the 
kin<^, was to give an air of ridicule to the serious calamities in which those, 
his ministers, had involved him ; that such opinions, now abstracted from 
foreign politics, it was beyond the right or the power of the state to settle 
or punish ; that kings had no right to enter into the tabernacle of the hu- 
man mind, and hang up there the images of their own orthodoxy ; that 
the Catholics did not insist his majesty should be of their religion ; that 
his majesty had no right to exact that the Catholics should be of his; that 
we knew of no royal rule either for religion or mathematics; and indeed 
the distance between divine and human nature being infinite, the propor- 
tion in that reference between the king and the subject is lost, and there- 
fore, in matters of religion, they both are equally dark, and should be 
equally humble ; and when courts or kings assume a dictation on that sub- 
ject, they assume a familiarity with the Almighty, which is excess of blas- 
phemy as well as of blindness. Our contemplation, the most profound, 
on divine nature can only lead us to one great conclusion, our own im- 
measurable inanity ; from whence we should learn, that we can never serve 
God but in serving his creature, and to think we serve God by a profusion 
of prayer, when we degrade and proscribe his creature and our fellow- 
creature, was to suppose heaven, like the court of princes, a region of flat- 
tery, and that man can there procure a holy connivance at his inhumanity, 
on the personal application of luxurious and complimentary devotion. Or, 
if the argument were to descend from religious to moral study, surely, 
surely ministers should have remembered that the Catholics bad contribu- 
ted greatly to the expenses of ihe war, and had bled profusely therein ; 
that they themselves were much in debt to human nature, and should not 
lose that one opportunity of paying a very small part of it, merely by a 
restoration of loyal subjects to their own inheritance, their liberty. We: 
suggested such a step as a measure of policy as well as justice, with a view 
to the strength and power of his majesty, who was most improperly made 
a bar to such a concession. We suggested that his situation with regard 
to America, to Europe, to his allies and enemies, was critical ; and that 
it was a mockery of that situation to suppose that the worship of the V^ir- 
gin Mary, or the doctrine of real presence, constituted any part of the roy- 
al difficulties ; that tlifere was no spectre to disturb the royal imagination, 
but an existing substance 5 a gigantic form walked the earth at this mo- 
ment, who smote crowns with a hundred hands, and opened for the seduc- 
tion of their subjects a hundred arms — democracy ; and we implored min- 
isters against such an enemy, to ally and idejitify the king vi'ith all bis 
people, without distinction of religion, and not to detach him from any 
part of them to make a miserable alliance with priestcraft, which was b 
failing cause and a superannuated folly. With regard to the danger of- 
fered to ihe connexion with England from the emancipation of the Catho- 



APPENDIX. 459 

lies we observed that the argument was of a most dangerous and insulting 
nature, for it amounted to a declaration that the privileges of a vast per. 
tion of a nation should be sacriaced to another country ; that it was not tlie 
old internal question, whether the privileges of one part of Ireland should 
be sacrificed to the ambition ©f the other, but whether a vast description of 
the people of Ireland should be sacrificed to England ; we observed that in 
this part of the argument we need not recur to justice, we might rely on 
policy ; and we asked, was it the policy of England, for the purity ot 
Irish faith, to make experiments on Irish allegiance ? We did not wish 
to exaggerate, but were justified in making this supposition— suppose Ire- 
land the seat of government, and that for the better securing the safety of 
the king, here resident, and for the connexion of Great Britain with Ire. 
land, that the Irish should incapacitate all the Protestants of England^? 
The same affection which England, on that supposition, would afford to the 
Irish, the same affection has she now a right to expect from Ireland. 
When England had conquered France, possessed America, guided the 
councils of Prussia, directed Holland, and intimidated Spain ; when she 
was the great western oracle to which the nations of the earth repaired, 
from whence to draw external oracles of policy and freedom ; when her 
root extended from continent to continent, and the dew of the two hemis- 
pheres watered her branches : then, indeed, we allowed with less danger, 
but never with justice, she might have made sacrifices of the claims of the 
Irish. I do not mean, we did not mean, to press a sense of the change 
which has taken place in the power of England, further than to prevent 
further changes more mortifying and decisive, and to impress on Great 
Britain this important conviction, that as Ireland is necessary to her, so i$ 
complete and perfect liberty necessary to Ireland, and that both islands 
roust be drawn much closer to a free constitution, that they may be drawn 
closer to one another. The second part of our plan of conciliation wasr 
the reform of parliament. The object of the plan was to restore the house 
of commons to the people. If the plan do not accomplish that, it is not 
the idea of the framers ; but no plan could satisfy those persons who wish- 
ed to retain the credit of reformers and the influence of boroughs ; no 
plan could satisfy those who complained when any vestige of borough in- 
fluence was continued, that the parliament was not reformed, and when 
the vestiges were swept away, that the constitution was demolished ; no 
plan could satisfy those who desired that the boroughs should be destroy- 
ed and preserved, and were willing to let their people sit in the house of 
commons provided aristocracy sat in their lap. It is in favour of the plan 
submitted, that, without any communication whatever with the other side 
of the water, it bears a strong and close resemblance to the plan proposed 
in the parliament of Great Britain, and in that resemblance carries with it 
a presumption that it has a foundation in common sense and common m- 
terest • the objections to it, founded on the presumed antiquity of the bo- 
rough 'system, hardlv ventured to make their appearance; examination 
into the subject had shown that the greater part of the Irish boroughs were 
ereations by the house of Stuart for the avowed purpose of taodellin|[ and 
subverting the parliamentary constitution of Ireland ; that these were mi- 
derstated when called abuses in the constitution, that they were gross* 
and monstrous violations, recent and wicked innovations, and the fatal 
usurpations on the conirtitutioii, by kings whose family lo3t the thfone for 



460 AlPPENDIX. 

crimes less deadly to freedom, and who in their staf chamber tyranny, in 
their court of high commission, in their ship money, or in their dispen- 
sing power, did not commit an act so diabolical in intention, so mortal in 
principle, oi; so radically subversive of the fundamental rights of the realm, 
as the fabrication of boroughs, which is the fabrication of the court parlia- 
ment, and the exclusion of a constitutional commons, and which is a sub- 
version, not of the fundamental laws, but of the constitutional law-giver ; 
you banish that family for the other act«, and you retain that act by which 
they have banished the commons. 

*' It was objected with more success that the consthution of boroughs, 
however in theory defective, has worked well in fact; but it appeared to us 
thac this was an historic error — we stated in answer to that objection, that 
the birth of the borough inundation was the destruction of liberty and pro- 
perty — that James I. the king who made that inundation, by that means 
destroyed the titles of his Irish subjects to their lands, without the least 
ceremony—the robbery of his liberty was immediately followed by the 
robbery of his property; for, rely on it, the king that takes liberty will 
very soon take away property — he will rob the subject of his liberty and 
influence, and then he may plunder him of his property by statute. There 
were at that lime, the historian adds, inferior grievances. What Were 
they? Martial law and extortion by the soldiers, in levying the king's du- 
ties ; a criminal jurisdiction exercised by the Castle chamber, and a judi- 
cial power by the council. These inferior and those superior grievances 
amounted to no law at all. How could it happen, says the historian, that 
the king could do all this with so small an army; seize the properties of 
the subjects, and transport the inhabitant ? I will presume to conjecture ; 
the king had another instrument, more subtle and more pliable than the 
sword, and against the liberty of the subject more cold and deadly, a court 
instrument that murders freedom without the mark of blood, palls itself in 
the covering of the constitution, and in her own colours, and in her name 
plants the dagger— a borough parliament. Under this borough system' 
the reign of James was bad, but the next was worse ; the grievances which 
England complained of, under Charles the First, were committed in Ire- 
land also. Those measures, I mean, called the new councils; they had 
been aggravated here by an attempt to confiscate the province of Con- 
naught There is extant a correspondence on the subject of Ireland, be- 
tween the king and his deputy. Lord Strafford, of a most criminal and'dis- 
gusiing nature: his majesty begins by professing his general horrors of the 
constitution; he proceeds to acknowledge his particular injuries to the 
Irish ; he owned that he had defrauded the Irish of their promised graces 
and he expresses his fears that they have a right, in justice, to ask what it 
was his interest as it appeared to be his determination to refuse. His 
deputy —what does he do .? He exceeds his royal master in his zeal against 
the pretensions of Ireland. A judicious court sycophant will often flatter 
the court of St. James, by Irish sacrifices, whether it is the constitution, or 
the fair name of the country. He, the deputy, had, said the historian, 
two great objects— one was to fleece the people of Ireland, and the other 
was^to cheat them— to get the money and to elude the graces. He suc- 
ceeded—why ? Because there was another— a third instrument, worse 
than himselt— a borough parliament ; that borough parliament met— it vo- 
ted SIX subsidies, and redressed nothing : this is virtue and public spirit, in 



APPENDIX. 461 

comparison to what it did after. After con»mitting these crintfs, for wiiich 
the deputy justly lost his head — after having seized part of the provinrr of 
Connaught — after tiie inflicting martial law. mono|iolies, raising an army 
against law, and money to pay that army against hiw — after fininjr and 
confining against law — tlie borough parliament vote that deputy an exint- 
ordinary supply; and in the preamble of the act they pass on the deputy 
an extraordinary panegyric, with such a thorough conviction of his iniqui- 
ty and their own, that they after impeach that very minister, for those very 
acts, and record a protestation against the record of their panegyric, to 
give way to the meanness of another borough parJiument, wiio. on the re- 
turn of his family, cancels the record of the protestation to restore tlip force 
of the panegyric. Massacre, confusion, civil war, religious fury, followed 
naturally and of course. Here you see hatched and matured the e^g that 
produced the massacre and all that brood of mortal consequences. 

<' The principles of right were rooted out of the land by government, 
and they were amazed at anarchy — the barriers against inundation were 
Removed by the government, and they were astonished to be overwhelmed 
by a popular torrent — the principles of robbery were planted by the depu- 
ty, and the government were surprised at the growth of popular |)ilhige. 
Had the country been left to a state of a barbarous natures she could not 
havebeen so shattered and convulsed as when thus reduced to a state of bar» 
barous art, where the government had vitiated that parliamentary con- 
sthution it professed to introduce, and had introduced without professing 
it, influence not civilization — had set one order of the nation in feud against 
the other— had tainted the gentry with the itch of venality, (there was 
bribery in those days as v^ell as violence) and had given them ideas of 
vice but not days of refinement. I pass over a hundred and thirty years, 
a horrid vacuum in your history of borough parliaments, §ave only as it 
has been filled with four horrid images in the four-fold prose ription of the 
religion, trade, of the judicative and legislative authority of the country, 
by the commercial restrictions of William, the penal laws of William and 
Anne, and the declaratory act of the Glh of George ; and I come to 
the boundary of the gulf, where the constitution begins to stir and live 
in an octennial bill, accompanied, however, with, and corrected by. a 
court project of new f)arliamentary influence and degradation. This ob- 
ject may be called a court plan for reforming borough parliaments ; but 
reforming them not on the principle of popular representation, but of a 
more complete and perfect exclusion and banishment of the commons. 
The people had begun to form certain combinations with the ogligarchj^, 
and, like weeds, began to grow a little about the doors and courts of their 
own houses of parliament, and like weeds it was thought proper to banish 
them ; and as government had before resorted to the creation of boroughs, 
to overwhelm the commons, so now they resorted to a new host of places 
and pensions to overwhelm the oligarchy. This is the famous half million, 
or the experiment of the castle, to secure the dependance of parliament, 
and to prevent the formation of an Irish party against the donunation of a 
British cabinet. The court could not then, like the first James and the 
first Charles, command to rise up a new fabric of boroughs, like a real 
pandemonium, to constitute a real house of commons; it therefore engen- 
dered a young and numerous family of places and pensions, to bribe and 
to buy, and to split and shatter, and to corrupt the oligarchy. Thug were 



463 APPENDIX. 



the people once more excluded from the chance of influence in parliament, 
^nd as it were shouldered from the threshold of their own house by a host 
of placemen and pensioners who had left the cause of the country to follow 
the fortunes of the aristocracy, and now left the aristocracy to follow the 
fortunes of the court, and then voted new loans and new taxes to furnish 
wages for the double apostacy. You had now but little to give up, and 
that little you surrendered ; you gave your provision trade by an embargo 
of '76 to the contractors, and you surrendered, by new loans and taxes, 
your revenues to the minister. You accompanied these sacrifices with the 
unvarying felicitations of borough parliaments, on the virtues of goVern* 
inent, on the great and growing prosperity of your country, and her com* 
merce, which bring the poor progress of the country, your borough histo- 
ry and that of your chief governors, ' a continuation of rapine,' they have 
been wittily called, to the catastrophe of 79, which found your state a 
bankrupt, and your community a beggar, and which induced parliament 
to declare that such hcis been the working of your borough system, and 
such the sense of that parliament respecting it, that nothing but a free 
trade could save the country from impending ruin. I wish to speak with 
ail honour of the parliament at thai moment, but must recollect the circum- 
stances of that moment. Why did parliament express itself in that man- 
ner at that time, and demand its rights a short time after? Because par- 
liament was at those moments in contact with the people, and it is the ob-- 
ject of the reform that she should continue in contact with the people al- 
ways, and with the minister never, except the people should be in con- 
tact with him ; that parliament declared that nothing could save this coun- 
try from impending ruin, except a free trade ; but in declaring that, it de- 
clared much more ; it protested against these borough parliaments of a 
century, who had acquiesced in the loss of a free trade, who had suffered 
the country to be reduced to that state of impending ruin, for want of that 
free trade, and who had beheld the approaches of that ruin with a profu- 
sion of thanks and a regular felicitation on the growing prosperity and 
flourishing commerce of a ruined country ; and that parliament did, by 
necessary inference, declare that, to save the country from returning to 
that state of ruin, it was absolutely necessary to reform the state and mo- 
del of those borough parliaments, and therefore is arf authority for a popu- 
lar representation, as well as for a free trade; indeed, it not only proclaim- 
ed the necessity, but constituted it; for in a short time after it gave this, 
eountfy a new political situation, wherein she ceased to be a province, and 
became a nation ; and of course it rendered those borough parliamentSj 
that were adequate to the management of a province, absurd and inappli- 
cable when that province became a nation. A province must be govern*- 
cd with a view to the interest of another country — a nation with a view to 
her own interest ; a borough parliament was therefore not only competent 
Id govern a province, but the only kind of parliament fit for the degrada- 
tion of such a service, and for that very reason it was the most unfit and 
inadmissible instrument in the government of a nation ; for the principle 
of its birth being in that case opposed to the principle of its duty — the 
principle of its birth being court intrigue, with touched and tainted con* 
tractors, and the principle of its duty being the defence of the nation 
against such intrigue and such contractor — the nature of parliament being 
opposed to its duty, or its duty to its parent being in contradiction wiiti 



APPENDIX. 463 

rt8 duty to its country — it follows that the nation in such a case must be 
re-provincialized, and the independency supposed to have been then ob- 
tained, at that period would have been only a transferor dependency from 
the parliament of Great Britain to the court of St. James's, in covin and in 
couple with the borough brokers of Ireland ; therefore the independency 
of your parliament, and the full and free representation of your people, 
are terms synonymous and commensurate. In opposition to this history^ 
and these arguments submitted in different shapes to the house, in support 
of parliamentary reform, it was replied, that the borough constitution had 
worked well at least since 1782 — for before, no man will contend for it — 
and that the country had greatly advanced in commerce and in tillage ; 
and indeed, as far as the ploughman and the weaver are concerned, too 
much cannot be said to justify against every charge of sloth, the charac- 
ter of the Irishman, and to vindicate against a vulgar error the native en- 
ergy of a strong, hardy, bold, brave, laborious, warm-hearted, and faithful 
race of men. But as far as that boast goes to political measures, we can- 
not so well express our detestation of them as by recital ; the propositions — 

the new taxes without the trade the new debt, notwithstanding the 

new taxes — the sale of the peerage — the surrender of the East India 
trade for the re-export trade — the refusal of the re-export trade, with- 
out such barter — the inequality of the channel trade, and the present 
provincial tariff suffered still to obtain between the two countries — 
8,000,000/. of loan voted on account of the war, without commercial com- 
pensation, liberality, or equality — the increase of offices, for the professed 
purposes of procuring a majority — another increase of offices since the 
place bill — .the bar bill — the convention bill — .the gun-powder bill — 
the indemnity bill — the second indemnity bill — the insurrection bill — 
the suspension of the habeas corpus — General Lake's proclamation by 
order of government — the approbation afforded to that proclamation — the 
subsequent proclamation of government, more military and decisive — the 
order of the military to act without waiting for the civil power — the im- 
prisonment of the middle orders without law — the detaining them in prisoa 
without bringing them to trial — the transporting them without law — burn- 
ing their houses — burning their villages — murdering them ; crimes, many 
of which are public, and many committed which are concealed by the sup- 
pression of a free press by military force ; the preventing the legal meet- 
ings of counties to petition his majesty, by orders acknowledged to be given 
to the military to disperse them ; subverting the subject's right to petition t 
and, finally, the introduction of practices not only unknown to law but un- 
known to civilized and christian countries. Such has been the working of 
the borough system ; nor could such measures have taken place but for that 
system. Such practices however, have in part been defended as acts of pow- 
er necessary to prevent insurrection, and punish conspiracy. But it appeared 
to us that in these practices government was combating effects, not causes; 
and that those practices increase these causes, and therefore will increase 
those effects; that admitting every charge of conspiracy and disaffection 
in its fullest extent — that conspiracy and disaffection are only effects of 
that great fundamental cause; that parent conspiracy formed some year* 
ago, to procure by corruption despotic power. That is the cause, and 
that cause acts according to the reception of its matter, and the tempers 
aiTd constitution, to which it applies ; and therefore produces on some 



^g4 APPENDIX. 

men disloyalt), in some republicanism, in some the spirit of reform ; but 
ii) all deep, great, and growing discontent. That is the cause and the 
poison which has made some men mad, and all men sick ; and tbougii the 
government may not be able to restore reason to the mad, or loyalty to 
the republican, "yet if they mean to restore health to the sick, if they mean 
to restore content and confidence to all, to most, or to any considerable 
portion of the people, they must take away the poison, they must remove 
the cause, they must reform the parliament. They, have told us at some 
times, and at other t;mes they have said the contrary, that it is a spirit of 
plunder, not politics, that is abroad ; idle talk — whatever be the crime of 
the present spirit, it is not the crime of theft — if so, it were easily put 
down ; no, it is a political, not a predatory spirit ; it is the spirit of politi- 
cal reformation, carried to different degrees — to liberty in some instances, 
to ambition in others, and to power in others. And even in these cases 
where charged to be carried to confiscation, it is evident tVom the charge 
itself that confiscation looks to political vengeance, not private plunder; 
and therefore the best way of laying that spirit, of whatever designs or in- 
tents, is to lay the pre-existing spirit of unlawfid power and unconstitution- 
al influence that has frighted the people from parliament, and has cal- 
led to our wovld that other potent and uncircumscribed apparition. The 
\vav to defeiid your property is to defend your liberty ; and the best meth- 
od "to securfe your house against a defender is to secure the commons house 
against a mituster. ' There was ambition, there was sedition, there was 
violence, mixiiig in the public cause,' said Lord Chatham to iVlr. Flood, in 
a private conversation, as he told me, on the civil war between Charles L 
and his people. 'There was,' said he, ' ambition, there was sedition, 
tliere vt'as violence ; but no man will persuade me that it was not the cause 
of liberty on one side, and tyranny on the other.' So here there may be 
conspiracy, there may be republicanism, there may be a spirit of plunder 
mixing in the j)ublic cause ; but it is a public cause, and let no man persuade 
you that it is not the cause of liberty on one side and tyranny on the oth- 
er. The historian of these melancholy and alarming times, censuring 
perhaps bo;h the minister and the opposition, and censuring us more for 
our relaxation than violence, will, if a candid man, close the sad account 
by observing, ' tliat on the whole, the cause of the Irish distraction of '97 
wds the conduct of the servants of government, endeavouring to establish, 
by unlimited bribery, absolute power ; that the system of coercion was a 
necessary consequence, and part of the system of corruption, and that the 
i.wo systems, in their success, would have established a ruthless and horrid 
tyranny, tremendous and intolerable, imposed on the senate by influence 
and the peojjie by arms.' Against such excess of degradation, against any 
excess whatsoever, we moved the niiddle, and, as we thougiit, the compo- 
Mi»g and the salutary measure — a retbrm of j>arliament, which should give 
^ constitution to the people — and the Catholic emancipation, which should 
give a people to the constituJioa. We supported that measure by the ar- 
guments herein advanced, and we defended ourselves by such, against a 
deluge of abuse conveyed in the |)ublic prints against us on account of that 
measure ; and I re-state those arguments, that however the majority of the 
house of commons might have been affected, your understanding may not 
be carried away by such a torrent of invective. We urged those considera- 
tions; we might have added, in our defence, the daijgers of invasion and 



APPENDIX. 465 

r - 

insurrection, panics most likely to incline the minister to concur in such a 
measure, which measure seems to be our best, I might say oqr only, de- 
fence against those dangers and those panics : we might have added con- 
siderations of the immense expense attendant on the working, as it is cal- 
led, of this borough constitution ; which expense may be called the prodi- 
gality of misrepresentation, or the huge and gigantic profusion which the 
people supply for turjiing themselves out of parliament. It is well known 
that the price of boroughs is from 14 to 16,000/. and has in the course of 
not many years increased one-third : a proof at once of the extravagance 
and audacity of this abuse, which thus looks to immortality, and proceeds 
unawed by the times and uninstructed by example ; and, in moments 
which are held alarming, entertains no fear, conceives no panic, and feels 
no remorse which prevents the chapman and dealer to go on at any risk 
with his villanous little barter in the very rockings and frownings of the 
elements, and makes him tremble indeed at liberty, but not at crimes. 
* Suspend the habeas corpus act — take away the poor man — send the re- 
former to Newgate — imprison the north ; but for the trade of parliament, 
for the borough-broker of that trade, do not aflect hira : give him a gun- 
powder act, gave him a convention bill, give him an insurrection bill, give 
him an indemnity bill, and, having saturated him with the liberty of his 
country, give him all the pliMider of the state.' Such is the practical lan- 
guage of that great noun of multitude — the borough-broker, demurring on 
the troubles of the times, which he himself has principally caused, and ly- 
ing at the door of the secretary full of sores and exactions. This sum I 
-speak of, this 14 or 16,000/. must ultimately be paid by you : it is this in- 
crease of the price of boroughs which has produced the increase of the 
expense of your establishments, and this increase of the expense of your 
establishment which has produced this increase tor the price of your bo- 
roughs; they operate alternately like cause^ahd effect, and have within 
themselves the double principle of rapid ruiii ; so that the people pay their 
members as formerly, but pay them Tmjre, and pay them for representing 
others, not themselves, and giving the public purse, full and open, to the 
•minister, and rendering it back empty to the people. Oh, unthrifty peo- 
ple ! who ever surrendered that invaluable right of paying your own rep- 
resentatives ; rely on it the people must be the prey if they are not the 
paymasters. To this public expense we are to add the monstrous and 
bankrupt waste of private property, becoming now so great that honest 
Hien cannot in any number afford to come into parliament ; the expense 
amounts to a child's portion, and that child must be wronged, or the fath- 
er sold or excluded. Thus, in the borough constitution, is private virtue 
and public set at variance, and men must renounce the service of their 
country or the interest of their family ; from this evil, the loss of private 
fortune, a much greater loss is likely hereafter to take place, the loss of 
talent in the public service ; for this great expense must in the end work 
oat of parliament all unstipendiary talent that acts for the people, and sup- 
ply it by stipendiary talent that acts against them. What man of small 
fortune, what man of great fortune, can now afibrd to come into the house 
of commons, or sustain the expense of a seat in parliament, or of a con- 
tested election ? And what open place, except in a very iew instances 
(the city is one of them) where the electors return without cost to their 
representatives? I know some who have "great talents, and have exer- 



46i> APPENDIX. 

cised them in the public service, are disposed to decline situations, to the 
honest individual so expensive, and to the public now so unprofitable. To 
this I am to add a greater evil than those already stated, the expenditure 
of morals. What shall we say for the morals of a country, how many years 
purchase would you give for her virtue, whose ministry founded its author- 
ity on moral depravity, and formed a league and covenant with an oligar- 
chy to transfer for hire, virtually and substantially, the powers of legisla- 
tion to the cabinet of another kingdom ? We inveigh against other com- 
binations, what sort of a combination is this ? This, I know not by what 
name to approach it, shoots its virus mto the heart and marrow of the 
higher orders of the country. ' Make your people honest' says the court: 
* make your court honest,' say the people. It is the higher classes that 
introduce corruption ; thieving may be learned from poverty, but corrup- 
tion is learned from riches ; it is a venal court that makes a venal coun- 
try ; that vice descends from above ; the peasant does not go to the cas- 
tle for the bribe, but the castle candidate goes to the peasant, and the cas- 
tle candidate offers the bribe to the peasant, because he expects in a much 
greater bribe to be repaid by the minister. Thus things go on ; it is im- 
possible they can last. The trade of parliament ruins every thing; your 
ministers rested their authority entirely ort thai trade, till now they call in 
the aid of military power to enforce corruption by the sword. The laws 
did, in my judgment, afford the crown sufficient power to administer the 
country, and preserve the connexion with Great Britain *, but our minis- 
ters have despised the ordinary tract, and plain, obvious, legitimate, and 
vulgar bonds between the king and the subject ; they have resorted to the 
guinea and the gallows, as to the « nly true and faithful friends of the gov- 
ernment, and try to hang where they cannot corrupt; they have extended 
the venal stipendiary principle to all constituted authorities ; they have 
given the taint to the grave corporator as well as the senator, and have 
gone into the halls and streets to communicate the evil to the middling 
and orderly part of the society; they have attempted the independency of 
the bar. I have great objections to the bar bill, and my objections are 
great in proportion to my regards for the profession, whose signal servi- 
ces to the cause of liberty must prove to every man's conviction how "val- 
uable the acquisition , and how inestimable the loss of that profound and 
acute profession must be to the cause of a country such as this was 
formerly, where the rule of government was the law of the land. We 
have heard of complaints against systems of disorganization. What is 
this system? Is not the corruption of organized bodies their dissolution ? 
Is not their perversion worse than their dissolution ? What shall we say 
of the attempts of ministers on slieriffs, and the appointment of that magis^ 
trate, with a view to parliamentary influence only, and to the prevention 
of legal aggregate meetings, and the suppression of the public sentiment. 
These things must have an end, ihi^ disorganization of constituted author- 
ities by court influence must have an end. lam not superstitious; but 
I know that states, like individuals, are punished ; it is to prevent their 
punishment we essayed thei»' reformation ; they are punished collec- 
tively, and they are punished slowly, but they are punished ; where thp 
people are generally or universally corrupt, the society comes to a 
state of dissolution ; wherr that corruption is confined to those who ad- 
minister the country, that power must come to a state of dissolution ; 
but in order to prevciit the society from partaking of that corruption 



APPEIVDIX. 467 

and by consequence of that dissolution, it is necessary that the power 
that administers the country should be brought speedily and radically to 
a state of reformation. The best systems are not immortal ; are the 
worst ? Is the trade of parliament immortal ? Have the best systems 
perished ? And shall this be impassable and everlasting, infinite in its 
duration, as it is unbounded in its profligacy. What was the case of Car- 
thage, of Rome, and of the court of France ? What is the case of the 
court of England ? Sitting under the stroke of justice for the American 
war, paying pains and penalties in augmented burdens and diminished 
glory ; that influence which has depressed her liberty, has destroyed her en- 
ergy, and rendered her as unfit to preserve her empire as her freedom. As 
long as the battle was between the court and the constitution, the former was 
perfectly equal to subdue her own people ; but when she was to combat 
another people, she was unequal to the task, and for the very reason, be- 
cause she had seduced and debased her own. The corruption of the court 
has rendered England vincible, and has endued her in her present state of 
national degradation with an insensibility of glory, the result and evidence 
of mental degeneracy. I remember to have heard Lord Chatham, in one 
of his speeches on the Middlesex election, observe, that in his ministry the 
object of the court of England was the conquest of the French, and that 
now it was the conquest of Mr. Wilkes. The pursuing such like conquests 
as those over Mr. Wilkes has enabled the French to establish a conquest 
over the English. The king who is advised to conquer the liberty of his 
subjects, prepares those subjects for a foreign yoke. The Romans were 
conquered at Cannae, first by Varro, and afterwards by Hannibal. The 
English have been conquer<-d, first by the minister, and afterwards by the 
French. Those Romaiis were finally conquered by the barbarians of the 
north, because they had been previously conquered by the princes «f the 
empire ; and then the half-armed savage, with the pike and the pole, came 
down on the frontiers, and disposed of the masters of the world as of the 
stock of the land : the gouty stock of the rich, and the mute stock of the 
people. 

" It is now sixty years since the adoption of the project to supply in cor- 
ruption what the chief magistrate lost in prerogative — the loss of thirteen 
provinces — of ^120,000,000; to lose these provinces, the loss of our sta- 
tion in Europe, the loss of 130 millions, to lose that station, to place the 
/;rown of England as low in Europe as in America, and to put France at 
the head of Europe instead of Great Britain, while her people crouch under 
a load of debt and taxes, without an empire to console, or a constitution to 
cover them, has been the working of that project; it has worked so well 
as to have worked the people out of their liberty, and his majesty out of 
liis empire; to leave him as little authority in Europe as his people in par- 
liament; and to put the king at the feet of France, as the people are put 
at the feet of the king; public credit has also fallen a victim to this its suc- 
cess, its last great conquest after liberty and empire. In this rapid decline, 
no one minister has been punished or even questioned ; and an empire 
and a constitution have been lost without one penal example; and in a 
war unparalleled in expense and disgrace, and attended with the grossest 
and rankest errors, closing the account of blood with proclamations of 
insolvency, no murmur from the parliament of either countries — no mur- 
mur. Far from enquiry or complaint, confidence has uniformly at- 
tended defeat and dishonour. The minister's majorities are becotne 
as numerous as his disgraces; and so ^gantic have been his encroach- 



468 APPENDIX. 

ments on the independency of the constitution, that they can only be 
matched by the gigantic encroachment of the enemy on the empire. In 
short, so perfectly do the people appear to be driven out of all footing in the. 
constitution, that when his majesty is driven out of almost all footing in 
Europe, and a question is made by the people, whether the ministers of 
these disgraces and dishonours shall be dismissed, they have their majority 
at hand to support them. Against this inundation of evil we interposed 
reform; we were convinced of its necessity from the consideration of cor- 
ruption at home; we were confirmed in that conviction from the conside- 
ration of revolutions abroad. We saw the regal power of France destroyed 
by debts, by expense, and by abuses ; we saw the nobility interpose for 
those abuses only to encumber the throne with their ruins, and to add 
revolution of property to revolution of government; we saw in the Ameri» 
can revolution that a people determined to be free cannot be enslaved ; 
that British government was not equal to the task, even in plenitude of 
empire, supported by the different governments of the provinces^ and by 
the sad apostacy of the hapless loyalist ; that loyalist is a lesson to the rich 
and great to stand by their country in all situations; and that in a contest 
with a remote court, the first post of safety is to stand by the country, and 
the second post of safety is to stand by the country, and the third post of 
safety is to stand by the country ; in that American contest we saw that 
reform, which had been born in England and banished to America, ad- 
vanced like the shepherd lad in holy writ, and overthrow Goliath. He 
returned riding on the wave of the Atlantic, and his spirit moved on the 
waters ©f Europe. The royal ship of France went down — the British 
man of war labours — your vessel is affected — ^ throw your people over- 
board,' say your ministers, ^ and ballast with your abuses' — * throw your 
abuses ov€rboard,' we said, * and ballast with your people.' We recollect- 
ed these islands were formerly placed in a sea of despotism ; we saw they 
were now two kingdoms in a republican ocean, situate.d between two great 
revolutions, with a certainty of being influenced more or less by one or by 
both. We asked ourselves, was it possible that the American revolution 
could have had such effects on France, and that the American and the 
French revolutions would have no effect on these countries. The ques- 
tions that affect the world are decided on the theatre of the world. The 
great question of popular liberty was fought on the%reat rivers of Europe 
and America. It remained to moderate what we could not govern; and 
what method so safe to moderate popular power as by limited monarchy ? 
and what method remains to limit the monarchy of these kingdoms (it has 
now no limits) as b}'^ reforming parliament ? What method, I say, to pre- 
vent a revolution but a reformation ? — and what is that reformation of par- 
liament but the restoration to the people of self-legislation, without which 
there is no libertv, as without reform no self-legislation ? — So we reasoned. 
The government of a country may be placed in the hands of one man, and 
that one man may reside in another kingdom, and yet the people may be 
free and satisfied ; but to have the legislature of the country, or, what is the 
same thing, the influencing and directing spirit of the legislature placed 
out of the country — to have not only the king but the legislature an ab- 
sentee — to have not only the head but the heart disposed of in another 
country — such a condition may be a disguised, but it is unqualified and 
perfect despotism. Self-legislation is life, and has been fought for as for 
being, It was that principle that called forth resistance to the house of 



APPENDIX. 469 

Stuart, and baptized with royalty the house of Hanover, wlieii the people 
stood sponsors for their alleejiance to the liberty of the subj<-cts; lor kings 
are but satellites, and your freedom is the luminary tliat has called them 
to the skies, it was with a view therefore to restore liberty, and with a 
view also to secure and immortalize royalty, by restoring to the people 
self-legislation, we proposed reform 5— a principle of attraction about, 
which the king and people would spin on quietly anfi insensibly in regular 
movements, and in a system common to -them both. ^ No, no, no; the 
half million, said the minister, that is my principle of attraction. Among 
the rich I send my half million, and I dispatch my coercion among the peo- 
pie.' His devil went forth— he destroyed liberty and property— he con- 
sumed the press— he burned houses and villages— he murdered and he 
failed. « Recal your murderer,' we said, ' and in his place dispatch our 
messenger— try conciliation. You have declared you wish the people 
should rebel, to which we answer— God forbid! rather let them weary the 
royal ear with petitions, and let the dove be again sent to the king ; it may 
bring back the olive. And as to you, thou mad minister, who pour in regi- 
ment after regimen! to dragoon the Irish, because you have forfeited their 
affections, we beseech, we supplicate, we admonish, reconcile the peop e ; 
combat revalution by reform, let blood be your last experiment. Combat 
the spirit of democracy by the spirit of liberty; the wild spirit of demo- 
cratic liberty by the regulated spirit of organized liberty, such as may be 
found in a limited monarchy with a free parliament.' But how accomplish 
that but by reforming the present parliament, whose narrow and contract- 
ed formation, in both countries, excludes popular representation, t. e. ex- 
cludes self-legislation, L e. excludes liberty, and whose fatal compliances, 
the result of that defective representation, have caused, or countenanced, 
or sanctioned, or suffered for a course of years, a succession of measures 
which have collected upon us such an accumulation of calamity; and 
which have finally, at an immense expense, and through a sea of blood, 
stranded these kingdoms on a solitary shore, naked of empire, naked oi 
liberty, and naked of innocence, to ponder on an abyss which has swal- 
lowed up one part of their fortunes, and yawns for the remainder. 

" May the kingly power that forms one estate in our constitution con- 
tinue for ever; but" let it be as it professes to be, and as by the principles 
and laws of these countries it should be, one estate only, and not a power 
constituting^ one estate, creating another, and influencing a third. 

" iMay the parliamentarv cimstitution prosper; but let it be an opera- 
tive, independent, and integral part of the constitution, advising, confining, 
and sometimes directing the kingly power. , . , , 

" May the house of commons flourish ; but let the people be the sole 
author of its existence, as they should be the great object of its care. 

" May the connexion with Great Britain continue; but let the result ot 
that connexion be the perfect freedom, in the fairest and fullest sense, of 
all descriptions of men, without distinction of religion. ^ ^ 

«' To this purpose we spoke ; and, speaking this to no purpose, witn- 
drew. It now remains to add this supplication :- However it may please 
the Almighty to dispose of princes or of parliaments, may the liberties 

OF THE PEOPLE BE IMMOrvTAL ! 

^' HENRY GRATTAN." 



470 APPENDIX, 

The following curious and interesting document has been 'procured through 
the kindness of a friend for insertion in the present work, 

ACCOUNT OP THE LATE PLAN OF INSURRECTION IN DUBLIN, AND THE 

CAUSES OF ITS FAILURE.* 

The plan was comprised under three heads — Points of Attack^ Points 
<f Check, and Lines of Defence. 

The points of attack were three : — the Pigeon-House, the Castle, an* 
the Artillery- Barracks at Island Bridge. 

The attack was to begin with the Pigeon-House, the number of men 200. 
The place of assembly the Strand, between Irish Town and Sandymount. 
The time low water. The men to divide into two bodies : one to cross by 
a sand-bank between the Pigeon-House and the Light-house, where 
they were to mount the wall, the other to cross at Devonshire wharf; both 
parties to detach three men with blunderbusses and three with jointed pike^ 
concealed, who were to seize the sentries and gates for the rest to rush in. 
Another plan was formed for high water, by means of pleasure or fishing- 
boats going out in the morning one by one, and returning in the evening 
to the dock at the Pigeon-House, where they were to land. A rocket from 
this was to be the signal for the other two, viz. 

The Castle, the number of men 200. The places of assembly Patrick's 
street depot. A house in Ship'Strect was expected, also owe near the gate. 
A hundred men to be armed with pointed pikes and blunderbusses, the rest 
to support them and march openly with long pikes. To begin by the en» 
trance of two job coaches, hackney coachmen, two footmen, apd six persons 
inside, to drive in at the upper gate into the yard, come out of the coaches, 
turn back and s^ize the guard (or instead of one of the job coaches a sedan 
going in at the same time with two footmen, two chairmen, and one inside); 
at the same momenta person was, in case of failure, to rap at Lamprey's 
door, seize it, and let in others, to come down by a scaling ladder from a 
window on the top of the guard-house, while attacks were made at a public- 
liouse,in Ship-s.tr«et, which has three windows commanding the guard-heuse, 
a gate in Stephen-street, another at the Aungier-street end of Great George's- 
.street leading to the ordnance, another at the new houses in GeorgeVstreet, 
leading to the riding-yard, and another over a piece of a brick wall near 
the Palace-street gate. Scaling ladders for all these. Fire balls if neces- 
sary for the guard-house of the upper gate. The lord lieutenant and 
principal ojftcers of government, togeiher with the bulk of artillery, to be 
sent off under an escort to the commander in Wicklow, in case of being 
obliged to retreat. I forgot to mention that the same was to be done with 
as much of the Pigeon-House stores as could be. Another part with some 
artillery to come into town along the quays, and take post at Carlisle 
bridge to act according to circumstances. 

Jsland BuiDGE, 400 men. Place of assembly Quarry-hole opposite, 

« Annexed to the copy from which the abov« has been transcribed is the following memo- 
randum, in the hand-wriiing of a gentleman who held a coiifideniral situation under the Irish 
goveriimeat. '• The oiigina! of this paper was delivered by Mr. Emmet on the morning just 
before he was brought out lo execution in order to be forwarded to his brother Thomas Aadis 
Lramet at Paris." 



APPENDIX. 471 

and Burying-ground. Eight men with pistols and one with blunderbuss'to 
seize the sentry walking outside, seize the gates, some to rush in, seize the 
cannon opposite the gate, the rest to mount on all sides by scaling ladders; 
on seizing this, to send two cannon over the bridge facing the barrack-road. 
Another detachment to bring cannon down JamesVstreet, another towards 
Rathfarnham as before. To each of the flank points, when carried, rein- 
forcements to be sent, with horses, &c. to transport the artillery. Island 
bridge only to be maintained (a false attack also thought of after the others 
had been made on the rear of the barracks, and, if necessary, to burn the 
hay stores in rear.) 

Three rockets to be the signal that the attack on any part was made, 
and afterwards a rocket of stars in case of victory, a silent one of repulse. 

Another point of attack not mentioned, Cork-street barracks ; if the of- 
ficer could surprise it, and set fire to it; if not, to take post in the house 
(I think in Earl-street, the street at the end of Cork-street, leading to 
New-market, looking down the street with musquelry, two bodies of pike- 
men in Earl-street) to the right and left of Cork-street, and concealed from 
troops marching in that street. Another in (I think Marrowbone-lane) to 
take them in rear. Place of assembly fields adjacent, or Fenton fields. 

Points of check. The old Custom-house, 300 men. The gateway to 
be seized and guard disarmed by a few men, the gate to be shut or stopped 
with a load of straw, to be previously in the street. The other small gate 
to be commanded by musquetry, and the bulk of the 300 men to be dis- 
tributed in Parliament-street, Crane-street, and those streets falling into 
Essex-street, in order to attack them if they forced out. The jointed pikes 
and blunderbusses lying under great-coats rendered all these surprises un- 
suspected ; fire-balls if necessary, and a beam of rockets. 

An idea also was, if money had been gor, to purchase Rafierty's cheese- 
shop, opposite to it, to make a depot and assembly ; and to mine under and 
blow up a part of the Custom-house, and attack them in confusion, as 
also the Castle. The miners would have been got also to mine from a 
cellar into some of the streets through which the army from the barracks 
must march. The assembly was at the coal-quay. 

Mary-street barracks, sixty men. A house-painter's house, and one 
equally removed on the opposite side (No. 2>G, I believe,) whose fire com- 
mands the iron gate of the barracks without being exposed to the fire from 
it, to be occupied by twenty-four blunderbusses ; the remainder, pikemen, 
to remain nearer Coles-lane, or to be ready, in case of rushing out, to attack 
them. Assembly Coles-market, or else detached from Custom-house body. 

The corner house of Capel-street (it was Killy Kelly's), commanding 
Ormond Quay, and Dixon the shoemaker's (or the house beyond it), which 
open suddenly on the flank of the army without being exposed to their fire, 
to be occupied by Blund : — assembly detached from Custom-house body. 

Lines of defence. Beresford-street has six issues from Church-street, 
viz. Coleraine-street, King-street, Stirrup-lane, Mary's-lane, Pill-lane, and 
the Quay. These to be chained in the first instance by a body of chain- 
men ; double chains and padlocks p ^.>r were deposited : they 
were to be done in this form, and I ^^"'^"^ -^ the sills of the doors 
marked. The blockade to be after- /^.•^"*0*'\ 23 wards filled up^ that on 
the Quay by bringing up the coach- es from the stand, 
and oversetting them, together with the butcher's blocks from Ormond- 



472 



APPENDIX. 



market. The houses over the chains to be occupied ivith hand-grenades,: 
pistols, and stones. Pikemen to parade in Beresford-street, to attack in- 
stantly any person that might penetrate; the number 200. Assembly,] 
Saiitli'tield depot, where were 800 pikes for reinforcements. The object]^ 
was to force the troops to march towards the Castle, by the other side of^ 
the water, where the bulk of the preparations and men to receive them 
were. 

Merchants' Quay. In case the army, after passing the Old Bridge, 
marched that way, Wogan's house, and a Birmingham warehouse next to 
it, to be occupied with musquetry, grenades, and stones ; also the leather 
Crane at the other ^nd of the Quay : a beam to be before the Crane, lying 
across the Quay, to be fired on the approach of the enemy's column. A 
body of pikemen in Winetavern-street instantly to rush out on them in 
front, another body in Cook-street to do the same, by five lanes openingon 
their flank, and by Bridge-street in their rear. Another beam in Bridge-st. 
in case of taking that route, and then the Cook-street body to rush out in- 
stantly in front, and the Quay on the flank N. there was also a chain higher 
tip in Bridge-street, as well as diagonally across John-street, and across 
New Row, as these three issues led into the flank of the Thomas-street 
line of defence, which it was intended only to leave open at the other flank, 
as it was intended to make them pass completely through the lines of de- 
fence. Wherever there were chains, the houses over them were occupied 
as above, and also such as commanded them in front. For this reason the 
Birmingham warehouse, looking down Bridge-street, was to be occupied if 
necessary. There was also to be a rocket-battery at the Crane on the 
Quay, and another in Bridge-street; the number of men 300. Assembly, 
Xhomas-street ; depot Castigan's Mill. 

Thomas-street. In case of coming by Queen's-bridge, a beam in 
Dirty-lane ; main body of pikemen in Thomas street to rush on them in- 
stantly on firing the beam. The body on Quay to attack in rear : in case 
of repulse, Catharine's church, Market-house, and two houses adjacent, that 
command that street, occupied with musqu*:;try. The rocket-batteries near 
Market-house, a beam before it, body of pikemen in Swift's alley, and that 
range, to rush on their flank, after the beam was fired through Thomas- 
court, Vicars-street and three other issues : the corner houses of those is- 
'sues to be occupied by stones and grenades; the entire of the other side 
of the street to be occupied with stones, &c. the flank of this side to be 
protected by a chain at James's Gate, and Guinness' Drays, &c. the 
rear of it to be protected from Cork-street, in case the officer there failed, 
by chains across Rainesford-street, Crilly's-yard, Meath-street, Ash-street, 
and Francis-street. The Quay body to co-operate by the issues, before- 
mentioned (at the other side) the chains of which could be opened by us 
immediately. In case of further repulse, the houses at the corner of Cut- 
purse row, commanding the lanes at each side of Market-house, the two 
houses in High-street, commanding that open, and the corner bouse of 
Castle-street, commanding Skinner-row, to be successively occupied. In 
rase of final retreat, the routes to be three: Cork-street to Templeogue 
New-street, Rathfarnham, and Camden-street department. The bridges 
of the Liftey t© be covered six feet deep with boards full of long nails 
bound down by two iron bars, with spikes eighteen inches long, driven 
through them into the pavement, to stop a column of cavalry or even in- 
fantry. 



APPENDIX. 473 

The whole of this plan was given up by me, for the want of means, ex- 
cept the Castle and lines of defence, for which I expected 300 Wexford 
men, 400 Kildare men, and 200 Wicklow, all of whom had fought before, 
to begin the surprises at this side of the water, and by the preparations for 
defence, so as to give time to the town to aflsemble. The county of Dub- 
lin was also to act the instant it began ; the number of Dublin people ac- 
quainted with it I understood to be about 3 or 4000. I expected 2000 to 
assemble at Castigan's Mill, the grand place of assembly. The evening 
before, the Wicklow men failed, through their officer. The Kildare men 
who were to act (particularly with me) came in, and at five o'clock went 
ofT again, from the canal harbour, on a report from two of their officers 
that Dublin would not act. In Dublin itself, it was given out, by some 
treacherous or cowardly persons, that it was postponed till Wednesday. 
The time of assembly was from six till nine : and at nine, instead of 2000, 
there were 80 men assembled ; when we came to the Market-house they 
were diminished to eighteen or twenty. The Wexford men did assemble, I 
believe to the amount promised on the Coal Quay ; but 300 men, though 
they might be sufficient to begin on a sudden, were not so, when govern- 
ment had five hours notice by expresses from Kildare. 

Add to this, the preparations were, from an unfortunate series of dis- 
appointments in money, unfinished,. /scarcely any blunderbusses bought 
up. 

The man who was to turn the fuzes and rammers for the beams forgot 
them, and went off to Kildare to bring men and did not return till the very 
day. The consequence was, that all the beams were not loaded, nor 
mounted with wheels, nor the train bags of course fastened on to ex- 
plode them. From the explosion in Patrick-street, I lost the jointed pikes 
which were deposited there j and the day of action was fixed before this, 
and could not be changed. 

I had no means for making up for their loss, but by the hollow beams 
full of pikes, which struck me three or four days before the 23d. 

From the delays in getting the materials, they were not able to set about 
them till the day before; the whole of that day and the next, which ought 
to have been spent in arrangements, was obliged to be employed in work. 
Even this, from the confusion occasioned by men crowding into the depot 
from the country, was almost impossible. 

The person who had the management of the depot mixed, by accident, 
the slow matches that was prepared with what was not, and all our labour 
went for nothing. 

The fuzes for the grenades he had also laid by, where he forgot them, 
and could not find them in the crowd. 

The cramp-irons could not be got in time from the smith's to whom we 
could not communicate the necessity of despatch, and the scaling ladders 
were not finished (but one.) Money came in at five o'clock, and the trusty 
men of the depot, who alone knew the town, were obliged to be sent out to 
buy up blunderbusses, for the people refused to act without some. 

To change the day was impossible, for I expected the counties to act, 
and feared to lose the advantage of surprise. 

The Kildare men were coming in for three days ; and, after that, it was 
impossible to draw back. Had 1 another week, had I 1000/. had I 1000 
men, I would have feared nothing. There wus redundancy enough in anj 
60 



A^^ APPEiNDlX. 

one part to have made up, if complete, for deficiency in the restj but 
there was failure in all— plan, preparation, and men. 

I would have given it the respectability of insurrection, but I did not 
wish uselessly to spill blood : I gave no signal for the rest, and they all es- 
caped. 

I arrived time enough in the country to prevent that part of it, which 
had already ?one out with one of rny men to disarm the neighbourhood, 
from proceeding. I found that, by a mistake of the messenger, vVicklow 
would not rise that night : I sent ofl' to prevent it from doing so the next 
ni<^ht, as it intended. It offered to rise even after the defeat, if I wished 
it *but 1 refused. Had it risen, Wexford would have done the same. It 
began to assemble, but its leader kept it back, till he knew the late of Dub- 
lin, In the state Kildare was in, it would have done the same. I was 
repeatedly solicited by some of those who were with me to do so, but I 
constantly refused. The more remote counties did not rise, for the want 
of money to send them the signal agreed on. 

I know how men without candour will pronounce on this failure, with- 
out knowing one of the circumstances that occasioned it. They will con- 
sider only that they predicted it ; whether its failure was caused by chance, 
or by any of the grounds on which they made their prediction, they will 
not care 5 they will make no distinction between a prediction fulfilled and 
justified, they will make no compromise of errors — they will not recollect 
that they predicted also that no system could be formed — that no secresy 
nor confidence could be restored — that no preparations could be made — that 
no plan could be arranged — that no day could be fixed, without being in- 
stantly known at the Castle ; that government only waited to let the con- 
spiracy ripen, and crush it at their pleasure ; and that on these grounds 
only they did predict its miscarriage. The very same men, that, after 
success would have flattered, will now calumniate. The very same men, 
that would have made an ofiering of unlimited sagacity at the shrine of 
victory, will not now be content to take back that portion that belongs of 
right to themselves, but would violate the sanctuary of misfortune, and strip 
her of that covering that candour would have left her. R. E. 



Shortly after Mr. Curran's death, several attestations to bis character 
and powers appeared in the London newspapers. From these the two 
following are selected : the first which appeared in The Morning Chroni- 
cle two days after his decease, was written by Mr. Godwin. 

" Mr. Curran is almost the last of that brilliant phalanx the cotem- 
poiaries and fellow-labourers of Mr. Fox, in the cause of general liberty. 
Lord Erskine in this country, and Mr. Grattan in Ireland, still survive. 

'^ Mr. Curran is one of those chajacters whi^ch the lover of human 
nature and its intellectual capacities delights to contemplate : he rose from 
nothing; he derived no aid from rank and fortune; he ascended by his 
own energies to an eminence which throws rank and fortune into com- 
parative scorn. iVJr. Curran was the great ornament of his time of the 
Irish bar, and in torensic eloquence has certainly never been exceeded in 
modern times. His rhetoric was the jmre emanation of his spirit^ a wann'- 



APPENDrx. 475 

ing and lighting up of the soul, that poured conviction and astonishment 
of his hearers. It flashed in his eye, and revelled in the melodious and 
powerful accents of his voice. His thoughts almost always shaped them- 
selves into imagery, and if his eloquence had any fault, it was that his 
images were too frequent ; but they were at the same time so exquisitely 
beautiful, that he must have been a rigorous mtic that could have deter- 
mined which of them to part with. His wit was not less exuberant than 
his imagination, and it was the peculiarity of Mr. Curran's wit, that even 
when it took the form of a play on words, it acquired dignity from tlie vein 
of imagery that accompanied it. Every jest was a metaphor But the 
great charm and power of Mr. Curran's eloquence lay in its fervour. It 
was by this that he animated his friends and appalled his enemies ; and 
the admiration which he thus excited, was the child and the brother of love. 

*c It was impossible that a man whose mind was thus constituted should 
not be a patriot; and certainly no man, in modern times, ever loved his 
country more passionately than Mr. Curran loved Ireland. The services he 
sought to render her were coeval with his first appearance before the pub- 
lic, and an earnest desire for her advantage and happiness attended him to 
his latest breath. The same sincere and earnest heart attended Mr. Cur- 
ran through all his attachments; he was constant and unalterable in his 
preferences and friendships, public and private. He began his political 
life in the connexion of Mr. Fox, and never swerved from it for a moment. 
Prosperity and adversity made no alteration in him ; if he ever differed 
from that great man, it was that he sometimes thought his native country 
of Ireland was not sufficiently considered. There was nothing fickle or 
wavering in Mr. Curran's election of mind. The man that from an en- 
lightened judgment, and a true inspiration of feeling, he chose, he never 
cooled towards, and never deserted. 

*•' Mr. Curran had his foibles and his faults ; which of us has not ? At 
this awful moment it becomes us to dwell on his excellencies — and as his 
life has been illustrious, and will leave a trait of glory behind, this is the 
part of him that every man of a pure mind will choose to contemplate. We 
may any of us have his faults — it is his excellencies that we would wish, 
for the sake of human nature, to excite every man to copy in his pro- 
portion to do so." 



The following appeared, October 20, in the Day and New Times : it is 
"he production of the Rev. George Croly,* who, it will be seen, was free 
vrom any political sympathy which could betray him into exaggerated 
encomium ; but however the views of the circumstances of Mr. Currants 
)ublic life may differ in the following sketch from those contained in the 
oreceding volumes, it is still inserted as the honourable attestation of one 
whom no diversity of political opinion could restrain from offering an elo- 
quent and disinterested tribute to the memory of a departed countryman. 

" The public prints, which announced the death of the Right Honorable 
John Philpot Curran a few days since, gave many valuable tributes to the 

*Authorof Pansinl8l'5, 



476 APPENDIX. 

memory of that celebrated man, but they still liave left much more room 
thati the present writer could expect to fill, for the detail of his extraor- 
dinary powers. 

<« From the period at which Curran emerged from the first struggles of 
an unfriended man, labouring up a jealous profession, his history makes a 
part of the annals of his country ; once upon the surface, his light was al- 
ways before the eye ; it never sank, and was never outshone. With great 
powers to lift himself beyond the reach of that tumultuous and stormy agi- 
tation which must involve the movers of the public mind in a country such 
as Ireland then was, he loved to cling to the heavings of the wave; he at 
least never rose to that tranquil elevation to which his early contemporaries 
had, one by one, climbed ; and never left the struggle till the storm had 
gone down — it is to be hoped for ever. This was his destiny, but it might 
have been his choice; and he was not without the reward which, to an am- 
bitious mind, conscious of eminent ability, might be more than equivalent 
to the reluctant patronage of the throne. To his habits, legal distinctions 
would have been only a bounty upon his silence — his limbs would have been 
fettered by the ermine. But he had the compensation of boundless popular 
honour, much respect from the higher ranks of party, much admiration and 
much fear from the lower partisans. In parliament, he was the assailant 
most dreaded ; in the law courts, he was the advocate whose assistance 
was deemed the most essential : in both he was an object of all the more 
powerful passions of man, but rivalry. He stood alone, and shone alone. 

" The connexions of his early life, and still more the native turn of his 
feelings, threw him into the ranks of opposition ; in England a doubtful 
cause, and long separable from patriotism — in Ireland, at that day, the 
natural direction of every man of vigorous feeling and heedless genius. 
Ireland had been, from causes many and deep, an unhappy country. For 
centuries, utterly torpid, or only giving signs of life by the fresh gush of 
blood from her old wounds, the influence of England's well-intentioned 
policy was more than lost upon her; it was too limited to work a thorough 
refoimation, but too strong not to irritate; it was the application of the 
actual cautery to a limb, while the whole body was a gangrene. But a 
man who loved the influence of this noblest of countries, might hate the 
government of Ireland ; it was a rude oligarchy. The whole influence of 
the Slate was in the hands of a few great families. Those were the true 
farmers-general of Ireland; and the English minister, pressed by the 
business of an empire then beginning to expand over half the world, was 
forced to take their contract on their own terms. The viceroy was their 
viceroy, only the first figure in that deplorable triumph which led all the 
hopes and virtues of the country in chains behind the chariot wheels of a 
haughty faction. It was against this usurpation that the Irish minority 
rose up in naked but resolute patriotism. The struggle was not long ; 
they hewed their way through the hereditary armour of their adversaries, 
with the vigour of men leagued in such a cause, and advanced their standard 
till they saw it waving without one to answer it. In this homage to an 
admirable time there is no giddy praise of popular violence. The revolu- 
tion of 1782 was to Ireland, what the revolution of a century before had 
been to the paramount country, a great and reviving effort of nature to 
throw off that phantom which sat upon her breast, and gave her the per- 
ception of life only by the struggles that must have closed in stagnation 



APPENDIX. 477 

and death. The policy of the English minister was too enlarged to offer 
resistance to an impulse awaked on English principles. For him a great 
service had been done; the bnildintr which he had wished to shake was 
cast down in dust, and the ground left open for the visitation of ail the in- 
fluences of good government. The country had lain before his eye a vast 
commonage, incapable of cultivation, and breeding only the rank and per- 
nicious fertility of a neglected morass; but he had dreaded to distuib its 
multitude of lordly pauperism, and hereditary plunder. It was now cleared 
and enclosed for him, a noble expanse for the outpouring of all that civiii- 
zation could give to its various and magnificent nature. The history of 
those years is yet to be written ; whenever the temple is erected, the name 
of Curran must be among ihe loftiest on its portal. 

" But the time of those displays which raised liim to his highest distinc- 
tion as an orator was of a darker shade. His country had risen, like the 
giant of Scripture, refreshed with wine; her vast original powers doubly 
excited by an elating but dangerous draught of liberty. She had just 
reached that state in which there is the strongest demand for the wisdom 
of the legislator. The old system had been disbanded, but the whole com- 
ponents of its strength survived. The spirit of clanship was still up and 
girded with its rude attachments ; the hatred of English ascendancy had 
sheathed the sword, but kept it still keen, and only waiting the word to 
leap from the scabbard ; the ancient Irish habits of daring gratification 
among all ranks, the fallen estate of that multitude who had lived on the 
pay of political intrigue, the reckless poverty of that overwhelming popu- 
lation to which civil rights could not give bread, all formed amass of dis- 
cordant but desperate strength, which only required a sign. The Cross 
vi'as at length lifted before them, and it was the lit'ting of a banner to which 
the whole darkened host looked up, as to an omen of assured victory. — 
The rebellion was met with manly promptitude, and the country was set 
at peace. Curran was the leading counsel in the trials of the conspirators, 
and he defended those guilty and misguided men with a vigour and courage 
of talent, less like the emulation of an advocate, than the zeal of a friend. 
He had known many of them in the intercourses of private life, some of 
them had been his early professional associates — a good man and a good 
subject might have felt for them all. The English leveller is a traitor, the 
Irish rebel might have been a patriot. Among us, the revolutionist sets 
fire to a city, a great work of the wise industry, and old, established con- 
veniency of man, a place of the temple and the palace, the treasures of 
living grandeur, and the monuments of departed virtue. He burns, that 
he may plunder among the rums. The Irish rebel threw his fire-brand 
into a wilderness, and if the conflagration rose too high, and consumed 
some of its statelier and more solid ornaments, it was sure to turn into ashes 
the inveterate and tangled undergrowth that had defied his rude iiidustry. 
This was the effervescence of heated and untaught minds. The world 
was to be older, before it learned the curse and unhappy end of the reform 
that begins by blood. The French revolution had not then given its moral. 
It was still to the eyes of the multitude, like the primal vision in the Apo- 
calypse, a glorious shape coming forth in unstained robes, conquering and 
to conquer for the world's happiness; it had not yet, like that mighty 
emblem, darkened down through all its shapes of terror, till it moved 
against the world, Death on the pale horse, followed by the unchained 
spirits of human evil, and smiting with plague, and famine, and the sword. 



4T8 APPEiYDIX. 

" Eloquence sustained a memorable loss in Cufran. On the general 
subject of public speaking, it must be allowed to the distinguished northern 
publication which has chiefly discussed the question, that no man can look 
through even the most triumphant works of the Irish orators without find- 
ing much of extravagance and irregularity. Still, the Irish are an eloquent 
people — perhaps the most eloquent. 

" Burke, Sheridan, Curran, and Grattan were Irishmen — ^all dissimilar 
in their styles, but all bearing the same lineaments of their country ; four 
memorable men, each, like Homer's chieftains, with his day of unrivalled 
triumph, and each seeming to come into the field with the radiance of a 
guiding deity upon his armed brow. Of these, but one survives, standing 
to this hour on the elevation to which the early gratitude of his country 
raised him, perhaps the most striking model ever wrought of brilliancy 
without glare, and vigour without violence. Unattaining and obviously 
careless to attain the Asiatic and imperial gorgeousness of the great chief- 
tain of his native eloquence, Bitrke, he has the close habit, polished armour, 
and pointed and sparkling steel of the Greek warrior. But Grattan can- 
not be judged of in England. He declared that his spirit went down into 
the grave with the parliament of Ireland. It was in his own country, when 
he gathered her rights and hopes like the wanderers of the air, and gave 
them shelter under his branches, that this monarch of the wilderness rose 
and spread in his full magnificence. On the questions which issued in 
giving a constitution to Ireland, Grattan exhibited powers as lofty as his 
cause. His feeling, his reason, and his imagination were condensed into 
one resistless splendour; he smote with intense light ; the adversary might 
as well have stood before a thunderbolt. Setmsin cesium. His fame and 
his labours are a part of the renown and property of his countr3^ 

It was Curran's fate never to have been heard in the English legislature. 
His character is therefore thrown upon his printed speeclies, and they can 
give no adequate impression of the orator. Those^peeches were all un- 
corrected copies, and Curran was of all orators the most difficult to follow 
by transcription. His elocution, rapid, exuberant, and figurative, in a 
signal degree, was often compressed into a pregnant pungency which gave 
a sentence in a word. The word lost, the charm was undone. But his 
manner could not be transferred, and it was created for his style. His eye, 
hand, and form, were in perpetual speech. Nothing was abrupt to those 
who could see him, nothing was lost, except when some flash would burst 
out, of such sudden brilliancy as to leave them suspended and dazzled too 
strongly to follow the lustres that shot after it with restless illumination. Of 
Currants speeches, all have been impaired by the difficulty of the period, 
or the immediate circumstances of their delivery. Some have been totally 
lost. The period was fatal to their authenticity. When Erskine pleaded, 
he stood in the midst of a secure nation, and pleaded like a priest of the 
temple of justice, with his hand on the altar of the constitution, and all 
England below, prepared to treasure every fantastic oracle that came from 
his lips. Curran pleaded, not on the floor of a shrine, but on a scaffold, 
with no companions but the wretched and culpable men who were to be 
plunged from it hour by hour, and no hearers but the multitude, who 
crowded anxious to that spot of hurried execution, and then rushed away 
glad to shake off all remembrance of scenes which had agitated and torn 
every heart among them. It is this which puts his speeches beyond the 



APPENDIX. 479 

estimate of the closet. He had no thought of studyhig the cold and mar- 
ble graces of scholarship. He was a being embarked in strong emergency, 
a man and not a statue. He was to address men, of whom he must make 
himself the master. With the living energy, he had the living and regard- 
less variousness of attitude. Where he could not impel by exhortation, or 
overpower by menace, he did not disdain to fling himself at their feet, and 
conquer by grasping the hem of their robe. For this triumph he was all 
things to all men. His wild wit, and far-fetched allusions, and play upon 
words, and extravagant metaphors, all repulsive to our cooler judgments, 
were wisdom and sublimity before the juries over whom he waved his wand. 
Before a higher audience he might have been a model of sustained dignity; 
mingling with those men, he was compelled to speak the language that 
reached their hearts. Curran, in the presence of an Irish Jury, was first 
of the first. He skirmished round the field, trying every point of attack 
with unsuspected dexterity, still pressing on, till the decisive moment was 
come; when he developed his force, and poured down his whole array in 
a mass of matchless strength, grandeur, and originality. It was in this 
originality that a large share of his triumph consisted. The course of 
other great pSjblic speakers may in general be predicted from their outset, 
but in this man, the mind always full, was always varyingthe direction of 
its exuberance; it was no regular stream, rolling down in a smooth and 
straight-forward volume ; it had the wayward beauty of a mountain tor- 
rent, perpetually delighting the eye with some unexpected sweep through 
the wild and the picturesque, always rapid, always glancing back sunshine, 
till it swelled into sudden strength, and thundered over like a cataract. 
For his noblest images there was no preparation, they seemed to come 
spontaneously, ajid they came mingled with the lightest products of the 
mind. It was the volcano, flinging up in succession curls of vapour, and 
fiery rocks ; all from the same exhaustless depths, and with the same un- 
measured strength to which the light and the massive were equal. The 
writer had the fortune to hear some of those speeches, and would impress 
it, that to feel the full genius of the man, he must have been heard. His 
eloquence was not a studiously sheltered and feebly fed flame, but a torch 
blazing only with the more breadth and brilliancy, as it was the mor^ 
broadly and boldly waved ; it was not a lamp, to live in his tomb. His 
printed speeches lie before us, full of the errors that might convict him of 
an extravagant imagination and a perverted taste. But when those are to 
be brought in impeachment against the great orator, it must be remem- 
bered, that they were spoken for a triumph, which they gained; that we 
are now pausing over the rudeness and unwieldiness of the weapons of the 
dead, without reference to the giant hand that with them drove the field. 
Curran's carelessness of fame has done this dishonour to his memory. We 
have but the fragments of his mind, and are investigating those glorious 
telics, separate and mutilated, like the sculptures of the Parthenon ; while 
they ought to have been gazed on where the great master had placed them, 
where all their shades and fore-shortenings were relief and vigour, image 
above image, rising in proportioned and consecrated beauty, as statues on 
the face of a temple. 

" His career in parliament was less memorable. But the cause lay in 
no deficiency of those powers which give weight in a legislative asseuibly. 
In the few instances in which his feeling took a part, he excited the same 



480 



APPENDIX. 



i 



admiration which had followed him through his professional efforts. Btn 
his lot had been cast in the courts ot' law, and his life was there. He came 
into the House of Commons wearied by the day, and reluctant to urge himi 
self to exertions rendered less imperious by the crowd of able men whc 
lou"ht the battle of opposition. His general speeches in parliament weti 
tin sports of the moment, the irresistible overflow of a humorous disdaiii 
ot his adversary. He left the heavy arms to the habitual combatants, an.j 
amused himself with light and hovering hostility. But his shaft waj 
dreaded, arid its subtlety was sure to insinuate its way, where there was a 
mortal pang to be wrung. With such gifts, what might not such a ma? 
have been, early removed from the low prejudices, and petty factions, anti| 
desperate objects that thickened the atmosphere of public life in Ireland 
into the large prospects, and noble and healthful aspirations that elated the 
spirit in this country, then rising to that imperial summit from which thi 
world at last lies beneath her ! If it were permitted to enter into the re^ 
cesses of such a mind, some painful consciousness of this fate would probi^ 
bly have been found, to account for that occasional irritation and spleen k 
heart, with which he shaded his public life, and disguised the homag( 
which he must have felt for a country like England. It must have been 
nothing inferior to this bitter sense of utter expulsion, which could hff 
made such a being, gazing upon her unclouded glory, lift his voice only 
tell her how he hated her beams. He must have mentally measured hi; 
strength with her mighty men : Burke and Pitt and Fox were then movins 
in their courses above the eyes of the world, great luminaries, passing ovei| 
in diflerent orbits, but all illustrating the same superb and general system, 
He had one moment not unlike theirs. But the Irish Revolution of 178^ 
was too brief for the labours or the celebrity of patriotism, and this power! 
ful and eccentric mind, after rushing from its darkness just near enough t(i 
be mingU;d with, and glow in the system, was again hurried away to chiB 
ijess and shadow beyond the gaze of mankind. 

*' The details of Curran's private life are for the biographer. Bute 
that jjortion which, lying between public labours and domestic privacy 
forms the chief ground for the individual character, we may speak with nc 
slight panegyric. Few men of his means of inflicting pain could have 
been more reluctant to use them ; few men, whose lives passed in continual 
public conflict, could have had fewer personal enemies; and perhaps nt 
man of his time has left sincerer regrets among his personal friends. H^ 
v.'jis fond of rjicouraging the rising talent of his profession, and gave hi] 
advice and his praise ungrudgingly, wherever they might kindle or direcl 
a generous emulation. As a festive companion he seems to have been ut-i 
terly unequalled, without a second or a similar ; and has left on record more 
r.f the happiest strokes of a fancy, at once classic, keen, and brilliant, than 
the most habitual wit of the age. 

" Finis vititi ('JUS amicis trisfis, extraneis etiam ignotisque non sine curd 
fait. I'^ulgus qucque, et hie aliiid ugenspopulus, et veutitavere ad domum 
ft per fora et circulos locuti sunt ; nee quisquam audita morte, aut IcBtatm. 
est, aut siatim ohiitus est. Quicquid ex Agricola amavimus, quicquid m* 
rati sunius. maaet, munsurmnque est in animis hominum, in ceternitate tern- 
^porutii^ fania rcrumP Tagit. 



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